Clash of the Elements Part 4: Chaos Training Arc
by mewmaster93
Summary: The interlude for Part 4 sees Riku Mew taking a break from saving the world to learn a little more about the elements he wields. But what shall he discover when he tries to do what no other Elemental Overlord has tried before and combine both Light and Darkness together? Everything changes after this story!
1. Chapter 1

**Clash of the Elements Part 4 Interlude: The Chaos Training Arc**

**Chapter 1: Setting up a Home**

"_How long has it been now since we've been trapped in here?" _A gruff, echoing voice says in a distorted tone through a blank, empty realm. _"Two-thousand years…Does your memory fail you now, brother?" _A voice as calm and soothing as a prolonged serenade replies.

"_Do not mock me for that, sister!" _The gruff person exclaims in a flustered tone, continuing on by mentioning _"You know that the flow of time is hard for me to gauge in this empty void. In fact, your estimate is likely incorrect as well." _

"_I would assume so too, were it not for the distortions in this realm that have been occurring as of late. After all, have we both not been hearing voices similar to that of our former mentor for the last few months?" _The gentle voice replies with.

"…_Yes." _The gruff person begrudgingly admits to his sister.

"_And last I recalled, you even briefly projected your image into the world of the living at the behest of that voice's cries for help." _The gentle sister says as her body floats closer to that of her brother.

"…_What are you getting at, sister?" _The brother asks in puzzlement.

"_The legacy of the Elemental Overlord has finally been passed on to another, and that very person seems to be the one destined to free us from this realm at long last." _The sister happily states.

"_Do you truly believe that? If not even our mentor could free us from this state, then what makes you believe that a mere replacement will be able to save us?"_ The brother states in cynical stride.

"_Because without even realizing it, he has already made more progress in opening up a gate to our realm than our mentor did with all of his effort. There is potential buried within this child, and who are we to not nurture it should he succeed?" _The sister says.

"_Nurture? That is ludicrous. I am not playing the role of a parent to this child! For him to be worthy of us, he needs to learn things the hard way. Should he free us, I shall be grateful, but at the same time I refuse to just let him be our master so easily. He will earn that right the hard way!" _The brother firmly states.

"…_Do whatever you desire brother. You will have my support, but only so you can see that you are wrong to doubt the child's worthiness." _The sister says, and the brother merely scoffs and says not a single word more afterwards.

Meanwhile, far detached from the blank realm these two mysterious siblings rest in, the teenage Elemental Overlord Riku Mew flies through the starry depths of space. With a barrier of air preventing the cold pressure from killing him in an instant, he makes his way across the cosmos to planets he has not visited before. As he pushes onward with a smile on his face, he glances off to the right as a bright yellow-red light shines his way.

The radiance of a solar system's sun shines through the black depths of space, the surface lashing out waves of heat at periodic intervals just as it was meant to as he flies out of sight of the massive celestial body. The sun reminded him a lot of the one from his own solar system, but with his connection to the elements he was able to tell the difference between the two suns. The one he viewed before him was older by a good couple centuries, but still had millions upon millions of years left in it before it would start to die.

As he thought about the age of the sun though, he looked away from the celestial body and pondered how much has passed since he began this journey of his. "…Out here, I can't really gauge the flow of time. I figure a few months passed between Hyrule and Samus' galaxy, but between that and Pop Star I can't tell because I was unconscious all that time. And who knows how long it has been since then?"

Riku stopped flying for a moment and positioned himself upright, suspending himself with his hands floating on both sides of his body as he glanced over himself. His clothes still fit him, even if they were a little tighter than before, so a fair enough amount of time has passed for him to age, which felt rather odd to him considering he has only managed to get food once since starting this journey. As the teenage Overlord touched his stomach region with a flattened right hand he quietly said "Maybe my elements are keeping me nourished…It would explain why I suddenly felt a mass amount of hunger upon crash landing on Popstar."

Then the boy both feels and hears a growl coming from his stomach, and with an embarrassed smirk he says to himself "…Or I guess they only do that when I'm incapable of feeding myself."

The teenage Overlord shifts his head back and forth and tries to find a planet that he could land on, but the closest he could find was a field of about fifty or so giant asteroids in the distance. "…You have got to be kidding me. There's no planets around?" Riku quietly bemoans.

Closing his eyelids and hanging his head slowly as he sighs, the boy says to himself "I guess I can land on one of these asteroids and try and find another planet with my elemental powers."

Removing his hand from his stomach, Riku kicks against the emptiness of space and flies off towards the closest asteroid, which was roughly in the middle when it came to size amongst the asteroids. It had a fairly decent gravitational pull for its size that Riku was pulled towards as he flew to it, but once the teenage Overlord landed he was actually surprised to find that his body didn't feel any lighter.

"Huh?" The boy noted briefly as his eyebrows flinched upward, and after blinking twice at this strange phenomenon he said to himself "…Then again, my body never feels weightless even when I go through space, so I guess its just a perk of being an Elemental Overlord…"

After quickly finding a satisfactory answer to his question, the teenage Overlord sits down atop the cold asteroid and folds his legs, closing his eyelids and focusing intensely on the depths of space around him in search of any bodies of water or greenery to signify a lively planet. He sits there for a good hour or so, concentrating as well as he could while the growls of his stomach try their darnedest to interrupt him. But no matter what, he couldn't find even an iota of either water of greenery in any direction.

Widening open his eyelids and breaking his concentration in a hard and heavy pant, Riku quietly thinks to himself _"You've got to be kidding me…There's not a single planet in range…At least, not one with any food or water." _

The teenage Overlord was a bit puzzled at the fact that he couldn't sense any planets. Surely a part of the solar system with a sun in it would have an inhabited planet or two nearby, and surely plants would be growing on such a world. "…Maybe I'm not in-tune with my powers enough for me to be able to detect planets from far away." Riku considered.

Planting his hands on both of his kneecaps and putting a reflective expression on his face, the teenage Overlord recalls past events and comes swiftly to the conclusion that whenever he detected any other elemental forces, they were usually within a few miles of where he was at, and even then he had a little difficult picking up on them. Letting out an annoyed sigh, Riku said to himself "Yep, that's all there is to it. "

Unfolding his legs, Riku stands upright and hears his stomach growl again, which does little to help keep him calm as he thinks about what he should do here. "Ugh, if I don't know where any planets are, how can I get any food?"

Hunger wasn't helping his thoughts either, and as he folds his arms in front of his chest the teenage Overlord taps one pointer finger against his skin and goes over his options. "I could try and find a planet beyond the scope I scanned, but that would just get me lost and worsen my hunger…"

Careful consideration made Riku realize that he only had that one option to go on. "…That can't be right." The teenage Overlord quietly notes as he draws his arms away from his chest and holds his hands in front of his body, staring back and forth at the palm of each one as he considers other possibilities beyond the simple solutions he had mustered up before.

"…Actually, maybe there is something else I can do." Clenching his fingers against his palms, the teenage Overlord nods his head as inspiration struck his mind, and after turning around he looks at the ground of the asteroid and continues his earlier sentence by saying "This is going to be a crazy idea, but I believe I can pull it off if I use the right elements."

Focusing entirely on the ground in front of him, the teenage Overlord uses his Earth element to analyze a large rectangular patch of the asteroid's surface. He closes his eyelids and watches his surprise as he visualizes the area he wants in a three-dimensional grid. "Not surprising that this asteroid is just a large chunk of metal and rock…But maybe, just maybe…" As Riku ponders some thoughts quietly to himself and finds himself in awe in how he visualizes part of the asteroid, he focuses intensely and blocks out all other outer distractions.

Using the Earth element, Riku imagines a landscape of pure, fertilized dirt within the three-dimensional landscape and tries to impose this landscape where the metallic rock is in hopes of transforming the composition with his powers. He keeps his focus up as hard as he could, but it takes only a few seconds for something to snap like a broken twig inside of his mind and break his concentration in an instant. Opening his eyelids wide and flinching backwards in pain, Riku loses the three-dimensional grid in an instant and feel an almost thrusting pain inside of his head.

As he grabs the front of his head with his right hand and takes in steady breathes, the teenage Overlord then feels something leaking down the front of his face, and quickly picks his left hand up and touches the part of his face where the liquid was coming from and pulled his now wet fingers in front of his eyes to reveal blood at the tips. It was then that Riku took pause and lifted his eyes up to look at the area he wanted to transform, saying to himself just a moment later "…Was changing such a small area too much for me to handle?"

Riku thinks about his question for a moment, and comes to realize that "No wait, even though I visualized a specific area to transform, I didn't specify in my mind that I wanted to change the material in just that area…So even with the grid visualized in my head, my powers interpreted the command as though I wanted to change all the asteroids around me into dirt…And consider how many of them there are and how heavy they are, it probably strained my body to do that."

If a mistake in scope was going to prove to be an issue, Riku decided that he needed to make sure that only the area he wanted to transform would be changed. Thus he swung his right arm out beside his body and summoned forth his sword, which as always was shaped like a black-and-white double helix without a handle. Walking towards the area he wanted to change, the teenage Overlord ignited his blade with the compressed heat rivaling that of the sun, and made certain that the asteroid would not start melting in its presence until he wanted it to happen.

"Until I can get strong enough to actually control a specific area, I'll have to do this the long way…Be still my stomach, please." Riku tries to ignore the growls of his gut as he shoves his heated blade into the surface of the asteroid, the hardened metal becoming nothing more than mere paper in its presence. The teenage Overlord then extends the heat of his flames down to length he wanted the area to be before and proceeds to start walking forward, carving up a line through the asteroid with relative ease.

After going along a certain length, Riku pulls his sword out and swerves his body so he is pointing to the west of where he once stood, planting his sword back down at the tip of the line and carving forward to create the width of his area. Two more swerves and carves later, and the teenage Overlord has carved out a rectangular shape into the asteroid. However, now came the hard part of this task. Riku dispels his sword for the time being and looks down upon the shape he carved and raises his hands up, saying to himself "I hope the heat weakened the bottom of this metallic chunk, otherwise I'm going to have to try something else…"

The teenage Overlord, after lowering both of his hands beside his hips and flattening the palms, focuses all of his might on the shape he carved into the asteroid, this time making certain that he just targeted that and not all of the other asteroids in the area. As Riku tugs mentally on the part of the asteroid he wanted to heave out of the ground, the entire space rock trembles, forcing the teenage Overlord to steady his body on the surface.

Riku felt a bit of strain in his head, but as he heard cracking coming from the bottom of the rectangle he pushed himself to continue onward. Grunting slightly in pain, the teenage Overlord pulled his hands above his head with one final push and as his mind snaps again the chunk of the asteroid he wanted to pull out is thrown into the gravity-less depths of space, where it slowly flies off into the distance at the same time as the teenage Overlord is thrown onto his back.

The impact hurts quite a bit, not just because of the sharp pain thrusting through his head, but also due to the hardness of the asteroid itself colliding with his back. Riku's eyes jolt open in pain, and though he wanted to yell he grit his teeth shut tightly and screamed internally as his arms fell flat on both sides of his body.

Though he strained his brain again to get this job done, no blood leaked from his nose this time around. It was an improvement to say the least, even if pain was now echoing across his spine. As Riku laid there and looked up at the floating chunk of the asteroid becoming smaller with each second, putting a smile on his face as he sarcastically notes "Well…I'm definitely working for my food here…"

The teenage Overlord lets himself rest for a few minutes, as he places his right hand against his forehead and continues to stare into the starry depths of space, thinking to himself _"I've traveled so far away from Earth…But these stars still look so small…"_

Riku reaches towards space and hovers his five right fingers above his body, saying to himself afterwards "I wonder if I could travel fast enough to see each and every star in the universe…"

The teenage Overlord, smiling at his probably impossible dream, suddenly musters up the energy to kick himself into an upright sitting position and look over at the pit he made in the asteroid. With a light chuckle, Riku says to himself "Well, one step at a time I guess…" and optimistically gets back up onto his feet. Now that the hard part was out of the way, the teenage Overlord stood in front of the pit and held his right arm out. Focusing once more on his Earth element, Riku shot out from his palm a heavy stream of pure, fertilized dirt that didn't at all touch his skin as it fell into the pit.

Moving his arm around only a couple inches every now and then, Riku made sure to fill in each and every square inch of the pit with dirt. Once this task was done, the teenage Overlord flips his right hand around and extends his fingers outward, making an almost cup-like shape with his hand as he thinks to himself _"Alright, now lets see how well I can make this work…"_

Drawing on the memories given to him by his creator, Riku thought about the seeds of many fruit, rotating through each and every option available to him before deciding on something rather simple. "An Apple tree might be easy to grow." He says confidently, and after smiling he focuses on the area above his palm and works in conjunction with both his memories and his Grass element, creating a tiny field of sparkling green particles coated in an opaque shade of brown, and by borrowing on the very powers of mother nature herself Riku creates in his hand a perfect apple seed.

The teenage Overlord grins happily and tightly clasps the seed between his fingers as it falls onto his palm, making certain not to ruin his progress by crushing the seed itself. He then opens his hand and tosses the seed into the center of the dirt pit, manipulating the dirt afterwards to bury the seed underneath. "And now for the water…" Riku snaps his fingers towards the patch of space above the dirt pit and creates a cloud in the air that immediately bursts at the bottom and releases a fair torrent of raindrops down upon the dirt pit.

The cloud was able to defy the laws of gravity and lack of oxygen in space simply because Riku commanded it to do so, and it continued to hover above the dirt even once the teenage Overlord moved on to the next step. Turning to face the sun in the distance, Riku flicked his left fingers towards the asteroid he stood on, directing the rays of light towards the dirt as he quickly flipped back to the face the pit and readied the final step.

"Alright, now that I've fed the seed…Time to see if this has all been worth it…" Riku snapped his fingers as he concentrated on the presence of the seed inside of the dirt. With fertilization, water, and eventually the healthy rays of the sun feeding the seed the teenage Overlord is able to safely accelerate the growth of the seed for his purposes. In mere seconds, the roots and trunk of the tree grow out opposite from each other, with the trunk and branches extended up from the dirt at a rapid pace. In due time, leaves form across the branches of the tree, followed by apples sprouting one after the other as the cloud is consumed by the very top branches as it continues to deposit water to feed the rapidly growing tree.

Riku takes a couple steps back in awe at the tree as it grows before his very eyes, feeling a hint of pride growing inside of him at his accomplishment. When the luscious green leaves and round red apples meld with the black, starry depths of space behind it, the teenage Overlord breaks his concentration on the growth of the tree and walks over to it, reaching up towards the lowest apple and plucking it off so he could bring it to his mouth and take a swift bite out of it.

The taste of the apple was fantastic. Just the right amount of juiciness and flavoring settled on the teenage Overlord's taste buds, which was only amplified by the sensation of satiation that settled upon his stomach as he swallowed that bite down his esophagus. Riku then looked down at the apple he had just started eating, and then up at the tree that was born from his own hands. "With just this little understanding of how my elements work, I was able to create this tree…" The teenage Overlord whispered.

Thoughts then began to brew through his mind because of this, and in but a few seconds a very serious expression crosses Riku's face as he tightly clasps the apple in his hand and boldly states "…Its time for me to stop beating around the bush. I'm not unconsciousness, traumatized or anything at the moment. While I have this freedom to myself, I think its time for me to learn how to use my elements to their full capacity." The teenage Overlord then lifted his apple up and took another bite of it, keeping this vow close to his heart as he sat down and prepared to come up with a plan to get to know his elements better.

_Next Time: The Seven Elements_


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: The Seven Elements**

After having a couple apples to satiate his hunger, the teenage Overlord turned away from the tree he created and looked at the barren asteroid in front of him. He extended his right hand and thought to himself _"I'm a clone, but with a few features different then that of my brother…Theoretically, I should be able to make clones as well."_

Riku focuses on the area of space in front of his body, and prepares to make a clone just like his creator did. The rules and information regarding this technique come to him very naturally, and as he holds his hand into the air with fingers stretched in all directions a grid shaped exactly like his body frame appears. Once he has created this light-green frame, the teenage Overlord concentrates on it while thinking to himself _"Alright, I should make a clone that looks exactly like myself, right down to the last detail…"_

"_But I shouldn't try and make the clone too sentient…As morally wrong as that might be, I'm just using these clones to figure out more about my elements, and…" _Riku then took pause and thought about what he was considering, saying to himself quietly afterwards "Actually wait, if I create a clone in the depths of space, then they'll immediately die…I can't influence them to be created with a shield of air around his body."

Lowering his hand, the teenage Overlord thinks to himself _"I need to create a breathable atmosphere around the asteroid for my clones. If I do that, then I can also drop my focus on this shell of oxygen."_

The teenage Overlord, ready to accomplish this rather simple task, raises his hands into the air and closes his eyelids, focusing around the circumference of the asteroid and expands his view of this particular one about three times outward. Releasing from his hands a couple invisible streams of pure, breathable air spread across the area above the entire asteroid. The air hovers around and creates a bubble that cannot be seen after a good twenty seconds.

After doing this, the teenage Overlord drops his air shield and upon immediately not feeling pressure crushing his head he takes a light sniff to breath in the air around him. "Whew…Glad that worked. I will probably have to replace the air later, but for now I can at least proceed on to my original plan."

Riku pushes his right hand outward and lowers his head, summoning forth another grid as he keeps a cautious look in his eyes. He then begins to transmit information to the grid through his mind _"Replicate my body down to the very last detail…Put the body under my control…And as for the element he should have fully mastery of…"_

The teenage Overlord has to pause to consider his options. Nine elements, but out of them he has already used Light and Dark a fair amount. Saving those for later would probably be the best option, so Riku decided to go for one of the basic seven instead. The best option in the teenage Overlord's mind was to go for Grass first, since if he was going to sustain himself on this tiny asteroid he needed to know just how to perfectly create a garden, and an understanding of nature itself through the actions of his clone would help his work immensely.

Since he was currently sustained by the apples he ate, Riku felt he could spend a few days training with his clone before he would have to eat again, so he confidently focused all of his power into the frame, transmitting all that he wanted into it before lowering his hand and letting the cloning process unfold. The grid was filled in with perfect flesh and clothing that matched what Riku wore currently, and it didn't take long until his replica had been given life, albeit a limited one controlled by the teenage Overlord's mind.

Looking at the being he had given birth to in his image, Riku quietly stared at him as he blankly and obediently also looked his way, and his a thought the teenage Overlord asked _"Can you hear my thoughts? Nod if you can."_

The other Riku obeys the command and slowly nods his head, saying nothing to his creator as he stands perfectly in place a top the asteroid and breathes in the air around him. The real teenage Overlord feels a heavy weight inside of his chest as he looks at himself, who is so perfectly a copy that it actually scares him. Whispering quietly enough to himself "…So this is what it feels like to create life…I-I don't even know if I should go through this now, actually…"

A moral quandary perplexes Riku's mind as he continues to stare at his clone, but since awkwardness was also another emotion that plagued the teenage Overlord's head he quickly positioned himself upright and halfway stared at his clone, saying to him "So, do you know what I want you to do for me?"

The clone nodded his head again, and quickly extended his arms on both sides of his body. Sensing something up in the air behind him as his clone began to float off the ground, the teenage Overlord watched as his clone quickly took the tree he made and latched control of it from him. The branches came to life, defying the stiffened membranes they should logically have as they turned towards Riku and thrust themselves his way.

The teenage Overlord pushes his right hand out hard, the branches halting halfway through their charge. Riku is left grunting in pain though, because since he specified mastery over the Grass element for this clone, he was actually at a disadvantage in this battle. Riku leaps back and lets the branches crash and splinter against the hard surface of the asteroid as he draws out his sword. His clone is noticeably absent from the surface behind him, and Riku watches as he floats through the air above him and makes his way above the leaves of the apple tree.

Riku takes out his sword and prepares for battle against himself. The clone snaps his fingers and calls the branches back into the trees, using his powers to rapidly regenerate the split wood into a more solid form, while also growing the apples back into place. The clone then snaps his fingers again and calmly draws his right fingers across the air in front of his left palm, summoning in front of his body a thick plank of wood from out of nowhere.

The clone then spins this wood around and points it at his creator, firing it at him like a piercing projectile with the intent to kill carried behind it. Riku felt this aggressive behavior coming from the clone, and was actually surprised by this as he swung his sword in an arc in front of his body to burn the wood to ashes. But such a tactic would not be so simple, for the wood met the sharp edge of his blade and shattered apart into many splinters, all of which don't burn in the slightest.

The impact of the wood against Riku's blade pushes the boy back a fair distance, but the teenage Overlord is still able to finish the swing of his blade as he moves. He flinches in surprise from the impact and closes his eyelids to avoid being blinded by the flying splinters, and afterwards he widens his eyelids open and thinks to himself _"Huh? Fireproof wood? I can actually make that?!"_

Looking up at his clone as the surprise made him forget the mental connection the two shared, Riku watches as his replica silently nods his head and taunts him with a sly smile and the wag of his finger, much like an immature child would in this situation, as oddly specific as it was to mention that. Riku then thinks to himself _"Well, I guess I didn't call this a training session for nothing…" _

The teenage Overlord tightens his focus and prepares for what his clone would do next. The clone spends the next couple of hours masterfully using the Grass element to his advantage. He aggressively attacked with the branches of the apple tree to keep Riku at bay, made the apples combustible to blind the teenage Overlord temporarily with the mush, and at the same time he also kept spawning different plants with his hands without requiring either the dirt below his body or any type of seeds.

A combination of aggressiveness with the branches and harmless distractions with his plants allows the replica to keep Riku from advancing very far towards the clone. The teenage Overlord, having passed two hours now without making any progress as his body builds up a sweat, decides to stop this training session and thinks to his clone _"Stop! Stop! …That's good enough for today…"_

The teenage Overlord snaps his fingers and causes the clone to degrade into the frame it was born from instantly after the clone's aggression has come to an end. The grid fuses back in with Riku's body, and the boy dispels his sword and falls to his knees from exhaustion. "Sheesh, I didn't expect that to be so difficult…I didn't know some plants could handle my fire, nor did I think that most of my other elements could be nullified."

The teenage Overlord, having made these observations on this first session, feels a bit of a daze in his vision and smirks, saying quietly to himself "Heh…I really need to get some rest…I can continue this…Later…" After that, Riku collapses onto his gut and quickly falls asleep, the atmosphere of air around the asteroid keeping him alive as he heals from his exhaustion.

Meanwhile, he is observed by the two figures from before, who have their own comments on the boy's actions. _"Bah! He wastes his time with the lesser elements, and he's too arrogant to focus entirely on Light and Darkness! I told you sister, it was foolish to assume that he'd be our savior." _The snide brother states in the blank, black realm.

"_Still your tongue brother, you don't know that for certain. He has not even tried. One must start from the beginning in the pursuit of knowledge…" _The sister replies.

"_The universe began with Light and Darkness sister, not with the other seven elements that the fool toils pointlessly to understand! His efforts are going to prove to be a waste anyways." _The brother states again.

"_You have no true reason to doubt him yet, brother." _The sister calmly replies.

"…_And you, dear sister, have no reason to instill so much of your own faith towards him." _The brother states with piercing snide.

"…_I await the moment where you are proven wrong, brother." _The sister then slinks into a state of silence and continues to observe the teenage Overlord from the safety of her realm.

Hours pass, and eventually Riku wakes up on the asteroid slowly. He had a good night's sleep, but he felt as though he heard a voice in his mind after he had first fallen asleep. Ignoring that voice for the moment though, the teenage Overlord goes for his apple tree and eats a couple apples from it to prepare himself for another training session.

He creates another clone with the same specifications, and prepares himself for battle by drawing his sword the very moment that the clone is created. He portrays his motives well, but this time asks for a little less aggression. Riku, knowing what the plants were capable of now, tried different tactics to deal with his clone. He used the sharp thrust of air blades to cut down the wood, and pinned the branches to the ground with large stones he spawned from the ether.

But when he tried to get close after dealing with the obstacles that plagued him before, the clone summoned forth a tiny flower and sprayed the original Riku with a cloud of pollen. This pollen was laced with a paralyzing element that froze the teenage Overlord's body stiff and made him drop to the ground instantly, his teeth kept grit in surprise as the clone rips the branches from the rocks and prepares to deal the final blow. However, with his mind still working, Riku says to his clone _"You will not kill me! Stand down now!"_

The clone obeys because he had no choice in the matter, and after lowering his hand to command the branches to pull back into position on the apple tree Riku mentally commands him to fix his paralysis and then disappear. The teenage Overlord then continues to lay on the ground, his body flattening out as he groans and quietly whispers "I can't believe I've overlooked so much on what my elements can do…My powers aren't just for raw power, they can be utilized in wiser ways than just that…If it had been an enemy that took advantage of my blindness there, I wouldn't be alive."

The teenage Overlord then makes note of another problem here, in that he felt exhausted rather quickly yet again. "Ugh…You got to be joking…" He bemoans, before closing his eyelids and taking in a calming breath, saying to himself after "No Riku, you probably shouldn't have jumped right into another training session after just waking up."

Riku, realizing the flaw in his actions just now, silently chooses to fall back to sleep for the time being. He laid there on the asteroid for a good twelve hours before waking up again, but instead of going straight to training after eating a couple of apples the teenage Overlord thought of something. "…I can't sustain myself on just apples, I need to have some protein at the least."

The teenage Overlord, with some of the knowledge he has obtained, looks at the his elemental powers in a different light, and comes to the conclusion that nuts could probably be grown with his powers. It wasn't much, but it would do for now. Thus Riku quickly thought of a walnut seed and created it with his powers, planting it and growing the rather large tree behind the apple one within a matter of minutes thanks to his acceleration process. The green pods attached to the branches are plucked off and split apart, allowing Riku to eat the walnuts inside and help refill his lost protein reserves.

After that, Riku decides to just sit down and examine the stars above him, mediating calmly under their presence as he thinks about all that he has learned so far about the Grass element. He doesn't jump back into training for another couple of days, once he's made sure that he has thought over the Grass element's capabilities to the fullest extent he can muster. Creating another clone to engage in battle, the teenage Overlord puts on a serious expression and focuses confidently on his clone as he uses both trees in combat against him.

The teenage Overlord fights back both the branches and wood spears tossed his way, sets up a whirling barrier of wind around his body to repel all pollen, and then closes in on his copy and tackles him from the sky with a charge powerful enough to disrupt his thoughts and prevent him from fighting back with his plants as his creator pins him to the ground of the asteroid and jabs his sword at his face while holding his arm up from above. Smiling happily at his surprised clone, Riku says to him "I think I've learned all of your tricks now."

The clone smirks, but before his last minute trick can be performed via a sneak attack from the walnut tree's branches the teenage Overlord quickly pulls himself to his feet and spins around to cut the branches down before kneeling back down atop his clone and pointed his sword at him while saying "That one was just common sense buddy."

The clone smiled after momentarily staring in shock at his creator, nodding his head in agreement as he faded away by Riku's command. Once the teenage Overlord dispelled his sword he stood up and looked back around at the walnut tree, noticing that the branches he cut down were burning apart at the base of the dirt. Flinching in panic, the teenage Overlord quickly swung his right hand out and put the flames out with a small torrent of water before they could touch the tree.

He then nervously laughs and says to himself "Heh…I guess I should worry about fires since I created oxygen around the asteroid."

With one element down and six to go, the teenage Overlord decided to relax for the time being and reflect on the Grass element. Realizing that each element could be both aggressive and passive, or deceptive yet sometimes obvious, he chose to keep viewing each element in such manners when he moved on to other clones. He took a break for a few days, spending that time meditating and reflecting on past events before he moved on to the next element, Earth. After all, if anything were to happen to the asteroid he was on it would be a wise idea to have the understanding of the element needed to repair it.

When Riku engaged the Earth adept clone in combat, he was surprised at how easily the clone was able to use the asteroids around the one he was on to his advantage. He swung them around with ease, forcing the teenage Overlord to put up his wind barrier so he could fly through space and dodge each and every one of them. Of course, this tired the teenage Overlord out quickly, so he had to end the beginning session with the Earth adept in an hour's time.

Over the next couple of months, the teenage Overlord not only battled the Earth element again and again, but he also dealt with the other five elements as well. He alternated between eating from the garden he created, meditating and reflecting on what happened in his previous battles with his clones, and battling the clones themselves. He learned many things from his clashes, like how the seemingly unstoppable lightning could be caught in a cloud or stopped with just a tiny orb of water. Weaknesses that weren't apparent in the other elements became clear to, like how it was possible for everything but Lightning and Ice to take down Fire, or how the Ice element needed at least an average temperature environment to be sustained.

And throughout all this, Riku became more and more adept at using the elements outside the battles. He figured out how to cultivate the asteroid he stood on into a garden filled with a variety of planets, vegetables and nuts beyond the apples and walnuts he had before. By the time he was done with his work, the teenage Overlord had created a miniature planetoid that could sustain life so long as he provided it with water and filtered sunlight every now and then. The atmosphere of this asteroid kept Riku feeling serene as he meditated, and he was also soon able to add pleasurable aromas to his garden that helped relax him before he fell to sleep after a training session.

Once Riku had dealt with all seven main elements, he had felt a lot more confident in his abilities, like he could do more with them than he was able to before. But at the same time, he felt a bit melancholy. Having to create and destroy so many clones of himself made him think about the moral qualms brought on by such an act, and in turn he thought back to the one life he failed to save on the first world he ever landed on. He realized then that by making all these clones and then killing them when their use had ended, he was completely disrespecting those who have lived and died before him…

But as this train of thought disrupted his current meditation for the day, he found himself drawing forth his sword in front of his right hand, staring down at its glistening blade as he quietly mentioned in a melancholic tone "…Death is always an inevitability, but should I just accept the premature loss of life as it is?"

Riku tightly grasps his right hand into a fist as he stops his blade in place, firming his eyes as he states to himself "No, I shouldn't. I control both Light and Darkness, the angelic and the demonic…Surely either element holds within it the secret to resurrection. My next goal is clear…"

The teenage Overlord lifts himself up from the grassy field he created and holds his sword horizontally in front of his body, looking out towards the space that's lit with both stars and blanketed by darkness, saying quietly yet confidently to himself as a continuation of his earlier sentence "I have to learn everything there is to know about Light and Darkness."

_Next Time: Unbridled Chaos_


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: Rise of Chaos**

Stilling his blade before his body, the teenage Overlord concentrated on the purest of the elements lying inside of his very soul, encircling around his feet a ring of lashing white flames as he is simultaneously enveloped in a pitch white veil. After a few seconds of spreading pure winds across the grassy field enveloping the asteroid, the veil breaks and Riku is left in the pure white wardrobe of a holy warrior, his blade having transformed into a diamond gilded katana with a handle that he is actually able to grasp in his right hand like a sword normally should be held.

As he folds his angelic wings inward, the teenage Overlord looks ahead of himself and extends his left hand into the air, focusing on a particular point on the asteroid's surface to create another grid shaped like his figure. "Have to be in this form for this session…If I don't, there's no telling what my clone will do to me."

Infusing the clone with a 100% understanding of the Light element, the teenage Overlord watches as the frame is filled in with a perfect copy of his body and current clothing. With this clone now born before him, Riku thinks only to himself _"Alright, lets see what I can learn about bringing back the dead from my Light element…"_

Drawing his katana at the clone to relay his intentions without words, Riku slants his eyebrows and waits for the clone to respond in a similar manner. With a relaxed smile on his face, the clone points towards the depths of space away from the asteroid with his left hand.

It was clear that the clone didn't want to cause damage to all of the asteroids during their training session, so Riku and his replica flew past the shield of air, surviving the vacuum of the space simply because of their pure light bodies. Once they had gone past the field of asteroids, the teenage Overlord tightened his grip on the handle of his katana and looked at his clone, waiting for him to make the first move. The replica had sheathed his weapon into the hilt on his right hip and remained motionless, with not even his wings budging an inch.

"I guess I should try the first attack…" Riku says to himself as he raises his katana towards the center of his body and glares over at his replica cautiously.

After unfurling his wings and flapping them once behind him, the teenage Overlord charges through the air at his replica with streams of light trailing behind his body as he majestically lifts himself upward and swings his sword with both hands in a strong downward arch that impacts hard with the clone's body and unleashes a wave of raw light that barely takes on the shape of a crescent as it cleaves right through the back of the replica.

The glowing light from the attack shines brightly through the depths of space for a moment, briefly robbing Riku of his vision until the attack dies down. As he pulls himself back and thinks in a disappointed manner _"That can't have been that easy…" _he is proven right as the light fades out permanently and reveals an unharmed replica floating in the middle of space.

Riku flinches momentarily as the clone smiles at him in the same calm manner it did before. _"Wait, my attack did nothing?" _He questioned to himself as he kept his arms pointed towards the right of his body with his blade pointed downward. _"That can't be right…My attacked clearly connected and there was an aftereffect from my blow, so what's going on?"_

The clone, having heard Riku's thoughts thanks to the mental connection, points to himself gently with his left hand and draws an oval around the center of his chest as if to give the teenage Overlord a clue as to what was going on. "…Could it be that he has a barrier around his body?" Riku inquires quietly to himself.

Gripping the handle of his sword tighter and slanting his eyebrow, Riku proceeds to say "Almost forgot that my Light form can manipulate reflective surfaces as well. This is just a more advanced version of that ability. But every barrier can be broken down, no matter how strong it appears to be."

Riku ignites his blade with white flames so bright that they dwarf the glimmer of the faraway stars and even the brightness of the nearby sun pales in comparison to its might. The clone, adept in his element, is unaffected by the blinding light and smiles as the teenage Overlord swings his katana out in front of his body, sending a wave of light so compressed in its appearance that it could almost not be seen as it cleaved through the depths of space.

Using this thin projectile, the teenage Overlord hoped to cleanly slice through the barrier surrounding his replica, but then the center of the clone's body glimmered as he slowly began to draw out his katana from the hilt attached to his hip. This action was followed up by the clone meeting the wave of light in the center with the thinnest yet sharpest part of his blade, which caught the wave and held it perfectly in the air just inches away from his body.

Riku flinches, but not before reaffirming his serious demeanor just as the replica absorbs the light into his katana. But though the light energy had become one with the clone's weapon, it didn't gain the same bright glow that his creator's did. Another glimmer mars the front of the clone's body, but Riku quickly analyzed what was going on and whispered to himself behind gritted teeth "I see, he can't keep the barrier up when he uses his sword."

The teenage Overlord thus decided to deal with the barrier by forcing his replica on the defense through other means. Riku held his katana in one hand and hardened the blade by compressing hard light down around it, making it look like a spear with a disjointed surface. Riku, with a graceful one-handed thrust, tosses the freshly made spear at his clone before zipping away from view at the speed of light.

The replica remains calm as the spear crashes against his barrier, the initial impact spreading out a shockwave of pure light across a two-mile diameter from the tip of the spear while the act of the weapon grinding against the barrier at it's master's behest sent smaller, thinner shockwaves out at differing intervals. While the replica was "distracted" by the spear Riku appeared behind his clone with his right fingertips glowing with a prismatic white light. The light grows brighter, and with a single thrust of his fingers the teenage Overlord sent forth two beams of light the size of his fingers.

The beams collided with the back of the barrier, trapping the replica inside of the now sparkling pod-shaped shield of his own design. Riku grunted as he pressed his fingers forward to try and break through the barrier, using an attack on two fronts in an attempt to apply plenty of pressure onto the shield and force the clone to either drop it or get it broken by his creator's attempts. But what Riku couldn't have anticipated was that the replica still had a rather calm smile on his face as he began to dispel the barrier around his body.

The clone swerved his body to the left and leaned his upper body backwards while folding his wings inward, ignoring the standard flow of time as he gracefully dodged the two beams of light, which collided head on with the front of the spear Riku had tossed earlier. However, the teenage Overlord didn't let himself get compromised by surprise and had the spear absorb the energy from the beams of light he fired out in order to increase its size.

But then the clone swings his right hand up while still pulling back on his upper body, holding his fingers outward and waiting for the handle of the katana buried under the light spear to pass before he clasps his fingers down and instantly dispels the light around the sword with that single action. Riku was shocked that his clone was able to grab onto his sword so easily, but quickly realized that this was the flaw in making such a perfect clone.

The replica was able to not only hold his creator's own katana, but could also draw his out as well, which he did with a quick pull of his right hand from the front of his hilt. With two katanas in his hand, the clone went on the offensive against his creator, quickly disappearing from view and reappearing behind the teenage Overlord, drawing both katana up and putting them in a pincer formation on both sides of Riku's neck.

The clone then spread his wings and launched from the glowing tips hundreds of needles in a field around his creator's body, preventing all manner of escape from that point onward. Riku only had a couple seconds to blink and stare around at the needles around him in surprise, and after looking back at his clone he said quietly to him "I'm impressed you trapped me like this…But since you've defeated me, that means this training session is over."

The replica nodded his head out of an understanding towards his fate now that his task had been completed. Before he vanished though, he handed Riku back his katana, which was immediately sheathed as the teenage Overlord descended onto his asteroid home and went back to his normal form for the day.

He had a lot to reflect on after that short battle, but even after a few days of eating and meditating over that matter there was only one thing that came to mind. "…I am not one step closer to figuring out how to resurrect the dead." He quietly spoke to himself after opening his eyelids one week after that training session.

Maybe there was something he missed during that session, but at the most basic level Riku felt that he understood the light element well enough. The Light element revolved around being passive instead of aggressive like Riku had been doing with the element before. Being passive allowed the use of much stronger abilities like that unbreakable shield, and the teenage Overlord also felt that the light energy exuding from the clone's attacks were stronger than his own.

"I guess it would make sense that passiveness would bolster the power of the Light element, but while that helps my fighting skills out I am not any closer to learning how to revive the dead…" Pulling out his sword and looking at it closely, Riku thought to himself _"I guess it would only make sense for the Darkness to hold the secret to reviving the dead…If I have to dabble in black magic to perform the task, then maybe that's the cost I should be willing to take."_

Riku swings his sword out beside his body and activates the Darkness element, causing his sword to vanish into the ether as he is coated in a pitch black aura with ethereal claws surrounding his hands and fleshy demonic wings sprouting out from his back as they are coated in black flames. His eyes also changed to a dark yellow color, but besides that his appearance remained relatively the same.

The teenage Overlord left the atmosphere of his little asteroid home and readied another grid to create a clone with, instilling him with a perfect understanding of the Darkness element as he readied himself for battle. As the clone's flesh filled the grid in front of him and neared the end rather quickly, Riku flinched and realized "Wait, if the Light element becomes stronger by being passive, then the Darkness element would-"

The teenage Overlord quickly stopped the replication process before it ended, robbing this clone of a momentary existence for quite a good number of reasons. Riku then broke out of his Darkness form as he descended back into the safety of the asteroid's custom-made atmosphere. Once he sat himself on the grass with eyes still widened he whispered to himself "I was putting my life at risk there…Darkness requires high amounts of aggression of reach its maximum potential, and there's no telling what would happen if I let a berserker act as my training partner…"

But with this line of thinking, Riku realized that he probably didn't need to train with a clone adept with darkness since he seemed to know too much about it except, once again, just how to revive the dead. This frustrated the teenage Overlord immensely, as he grit his teeth and kneeled on the grassy asteroid, slamming his right fist down on the ground beside him in anger and putting a few cracks in the surface beneath the blades of grass in the process. As his eyes were alit with anger, he thought back to all that he had dealt with on the last three planets, going from the latest in his mind to the earliest until the visage of the Hero of Time's impaled body takes front and center in his mind, at which point he snaps and slams his fist against the ground again.

"Innocent people shouldn't have to die in my presence! I'm supposed to protect these worlds from threats they can't deal with on their own, but once already I've let someone die before my eyes and I did nothing to stop the villain responsible! The tension of fear that has gripped me ever since then, it was driving me to consider sacrificing my own life to let others live, but that selflessness is just selfishness in a guise…"

The teenage Overlord pulls out his sword and glares intensely at his own reflection in the blade, in his anger he hallucinates and also sees the faces of the three heroes he had worked with beforehand, and upon noticing them he shakes his head and quickly declares as he stabilizes himself slightly "How can I properly be an Elemental Overlord if I let myself die and allow other to fall for my mistakes?! No, there can no longer be no room for error with me. I have to be able to revive any innocents that fall before me, but I will make myself strong enough to ensure that such a method will be an absolute last resort!"

The teenage Overlord, tightly focusing on his oddly shaped sword, tightly grasps his fingers around the air acting as the handle of his weapon and scowls angrily at it, exclaiming to it "Alright you goddamn elements, no more secrets. Light, which holds the power of the heavenly pathway that guides souls to the beyond or brings them slowly back to this realm…And Darkness, which casts souls into the hellish flames and purges away evil never to be seen again…TELL ME NOW HOW TO REVIVE THE DEAD!" As Riku desperately seeks out the answer to his predicament, the two mysterious figures continue to watch him from afar.

"_Hmph…Look at the child. He has succumbed to desperation, but his outburst is much stronger than that of our mentor. It was always destined to end this way, sister." _The brother says.

"_And once again you hold nothing but doubt close to your heart. Desperation can lead to great discovery, can it not?"_ The sister says in rebuttal.

"_You know not what you speak, dear sister. This child is immature, just like the other two. He, who knows nothing about how the universe offers and was forced to forge his own identity, continues to sink further into insanity as he crumbles under the pressure of his own shortcomings. His motives are always changing, and in this very madness he will become nothing more than a threat to the grand universe." _The brother points out.

"_Or, he could be the one to save us both. Why are you unwilling to give him even an iota of a chance, brother? Are you jealous of what he has?" _The sister asks in a gentle yet accusing tone of voice.

"_Of course I am jealous. I am jealous of everyone in the universe for their accused freedom and blindness. They know nothing of the suffering of those who have had to spend most of their lives trapped in this cage! And worst of all I've had to do nothing but listen to the optimistic and fool hearted pleas you continue to spout each and every day!" _The brother exclaims angrily.

"_If I am a fool, then so are you. Foolishness is relative, and if you were not so quick to forget you'd recognize that it was because of you that we are stuck like this in the first place." _The sister says.

"_I have not forgotten my part in this ordeal sister, but you should also come to recognize that the Elemental Overlord is to blame for my frustration. After all, when he failed to free us, he brought our hopes up by mentioning that the heirs to his legacy would be able to get the job done. But he never had a son or daughter despite his marriage to that sage from the other tribe, and instead he entrusted his legacy to three completely incapable children. It doesn't help that one of them is incapable of freeing us in the first place!" _The brother angrily replies, though his frustration is more directed at the original Elemental Overlord himself than it was his sister.

"_If that's what you wish to believe, then so be it brother. But I plan to see this child's growth through to the end, and since you have nowhere to go you'd be wise to try and do the same." _The sister then turns back at the thin gap in this otherwise blank realm, watching as the teenage Overlord continues to try and force answers from his weapon.

Riku exclaims to his sword "Stop giving me the silent treatment! I know you can hear me! You cannot disobey your master's wishes!"

The teenage Overlord, in the middle of his outrage, thinks to himself _"Wait…Maybe I've been going about this all wrong…Light and Darkness are both part of the cycle of life and death. Trying to figure out one element alone isn't enough to learn the truth about resurrection, but if I were to combine them together…" _

Calming down just slightly, Riku focuses on his sword, thinking towards it as he closes his eyelids _"Light and Darkness, become one and give me what I need to revive the dead…"_

As the teenage Overlord commands this of the elements he controls, his sword suddenly is blanketed by a pitch white veil, followed up by rings of black flames surrounding that veil. The rings of flame react negatively with the light, creating a clash of black and white sparks between both forces that makes the entire asteroid tremble in its wake while simultaneously creating an invisible gale in all directions.

When the clash between both light and darkness has come to an end, both elements merge together and burst apart from the sword, covering Riku swiftly in a powerful wave of both elements and throw him back against the asteroid, hitting him with enough force to quickly blow him unconscious against the grassy surface…

_Next Time: The Awakening_


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4: The Two Agents**

Minutes after being thrown unconsciousness by the mere act of trying to forcibly merge Light and Darkness together, Riku groans and slowly starts to open his eyelids. He was hearing the distorted whisper of voices outside of his mind as he awakened, and by the sounds of things both voices were referring to him specifically.

"_Hmph, he has finally reawakened…How sad that such a change to his body was enough to toss him unconscious." _The gruffer of the two voices states.

"_We are finally free and still you find ways to mock our savior…I guess I shouldn't have expected anything less from you, brother." _The gentler of the two voices states towards her brother.

Riku, continuing to groan in pain, holds the back of his head as he hears these two voices and quietly says "Ugh…I really took a blow to the cranium…I'm hearing multiple voices out there."

The teenage Overlord fully opens his eyelids and tries to get a perfect grasp on his vision once more. It only takes a few seconds for him to look out towards the depths of space. But something, or rather someone, covered most of Riku's field of vision as he lied slanted against the surface of the grassy asteroid.

Larger than any living being Riku has ever seen before was a gigantic bipedal black scaled dragon standing in the depths of space very close to the edge of the asteroid. The dragon had limber arms with three dark-blue claws on each hand along with muscular legs that were as tall as the asteroid Riku was on was long. The frontal flesh stretching from the neck to the underside of his long spiked tail is colored dark-purple. His head is shaped like you'd expect a dragon of his size to be, but his red eyes looked rather human and lacked the slit-shaped pupils that someone of his species should have. The dragon lacked an obvious ears, but on the sides of his head were protrusions shaped like sharp, pointed fins that meshed in perfectly with the pitch black scales scattered around his head. Finally, wrapped around his waist was an ancient-runic belt with a triangular-bladed sword in the hilt of the right side and a strange gun in the left hilt.

Contrasting the intimidating presence of this massive dragon was the second one floating gently around him. This dragon had a more serpentine form, with scales as sleek and shiny as a newly created pearl, but surprisingly lacked the limbs the larger one had. There were two sets of tiny yellow spikes along the back of the dragon that slowly changed to the color orange and later red, signifying that the colors of the rainbow were imbued within its body. The dragon has slightly elongated nostrils with fur of gold attached to the back of its eyes that stretches back twenty feet. Like the black dragon, this one had human-like eyes of purple. Finally, the tail of the dragon simply ended at a point and didn't have anything special attached to it.

Riku understandably began to freak out quietly, as he laid his hands against the asteroid and slowly started to crawl backwards away from the giant dragons. Stuttering out to himself "D-D-D-Dra-a-agons…D-Dragons…" the teenage Overlord held his right hand out, breaking his support and forcing himself on his back as he tried to summon his sword to no avail. As he continues to freak out, he quickly places his hand back on the asteroid and supports himself back up as the larger dragon finally speaks out.

"_You have to be kidding me. This cowardly child is our savior? I can only gape in awe about how he could have possibly survived this long." _The black dragon's words are harsh, which causes the white dragon to snap from her delicate flight around her brother and quickly turn and look at him with furious eyes.

"_Enough! You will now still your tongue brother. This boy rescued us from that terrible void, so you shall show respect!" _The sister says with a silver tongue slipping out from her mouth as she speaks.

"_I shall still my tongue, sister, when this boy shows that he is worthy of having even an iota of my respect. All he has done is proven nothing to either of us. Now that I am free, I have no reason to stick around here. I plan to find the descendants of my old tribe and seek a worthy master amongst them. If you want to be the pet of this unworthy child, then be my guest." _After telling his sister off, the black dragon slowly turns away from her glare and spreads his wide, red membrane wings, releasing a gale that defies the laws of space and blows away all asteroids unlucky to be caught in it.

The dragon then attempts to escape, but immediately after thrusting himself forward a crimson collar materializes around his neck along with a pitch black chain radiating with darkness leading into a distorted crack off to the left of his enormous body. The crack is pulled wide, revealing a pitch black realm that Riku briefly catches a glimpse of as the dragon is choked by the collar and pulled downward. The sister shakes her head in disappointment, saying to her brother as he rises back up and tightly grips the part of the chain closest to his neck _"Did you think you had gained true freedom? The awakening was only the first part, the birth of true Chaos is the only way that we are going to be able to escape that realm."_

The black dragon scowled in anger and quickly grabbed the handle of his sword, drawing out a screaming blade that glows blood-black and prepares to use it on the chain, only for the sister to stop him with a glance that paralyzes the right arm of his brother, saying to him _"Do not waste your strength." _

The black dragon, after dropping his aggression, is freed of his paralysis and is allowed to sheathe his blade. Riku finally decides to step in at this point, saying with a frozen expression of shock on his face as he stutters "W-Who are you two?"

The white dragon turns towards the teenage Overlord, saying to him gently as she closes her eyelids _"I am so sorry for my brother's behavior, sire Overlord. My name is Sodenko, and the grumpy dragon behind me is my brother, Takashi." _

The teenage Overlord watches as Sodenko slowly turns around and descends into the atmosphere of the boy's asteroid, poking her nose close and saying to him _"You do not need to state your name. You are Riku Mew, the third child to carry on the Elemental Overlord's legacy."_

Riku, being stared down by this majestic dragon, finds himself feeling unnaturally calm in her presence, so much to the point that he noticed something odd in what she said and was quick to mention as he relaxed his facial expression into one of slight puzzlement "T-Third child?"

Sodenko widens her eyelids and glares at the boy in shock herself, saying in a embarrassed tone of voice _"Oh dear…I let something slip that I shouldn't have. I'm sorry, I had assumed you knew because you had the memories of your creator, who met the first child."_

Though many questions arose as Sodenko spoke, Riku focused on one in particular that perturbed him and asked "Wait, how do you know all of this?"

"_We've been watching the three of you all this time, waiting for the day when one of you would stumble upon the truth and free us both from our imprisonment." _Sodenko says as she nudges her head forward just enough for a pure white collar to materialize around her neck along with a golden chain at the top of the collar.

Riku, taking notice of the chains and collars of the two dragons, quietly asks "What is up with those chains? What happened to you two?"

"_Many a terrible thing, sire Overlord. We've been trapped in that realm behind us ever since the days of the original Overlord. But thanks to your discovery, we have been freed…Partially, at least." _Sodenko nudges back towards the chain at the end of her sentence.

Riku quietly asks "Discovery? Partially freed?" and the black dragon, Takashi, suddenly exclaims to his sister _"Sister, the child doesn't even know that of which he has done. Take a look at your clothes, boy." _

Listening to the words of the dragon, the teenage Overlord looks down and is surprised by the sudden changes brought onto his wardrobe. He was now wrapped in a sleek black metallic armor that almost perfectly meshed with his skin and the muscles underneath. Attached to his shoulders were the top halves of a dragon's skulls that extended out slightly past the width of his shoulders. Along his arms were a multitude of pulled back angelic feathers that ended just before his wrists, which were surrounded by a shining golden and silver halo on his right and left respectively. Around his waist was an ancient runic belt similar to the one around the black dragon, and in the right hilt was the gilded katana from his Light form while in the left hilt was a thick, curved dagger. A crimson cloth with strange symbols on the back of it covers both hilts and extends down to the back of Riku's now armored knees. The last thing of note at the moment was that the tip of Riku's armored feet were pointed.

Beyond that, the teenage Overlord's hair was the same color as usual while his right eye had been dark yellow and his left one had become pure white. As he pulled himself up off the ground and looked in awe at his new form, Riku felt a slight bit of weight coming from behind and turned his head to notice two sets of wings had become attached to the back of his armor. One pair of angelic ones at the top, and two demonic ones at the bottom.

The teenage Overlord was honestly a little overwhelmed by everything that had been happening since he woke up. From the dragons to this new, mysterious form of his Riku started to feel a bit dizzy as he turns his head back around and slowly mutters "Geez, what have I gotten myself into?"

Sodenko looks at the boy and says to him _"You have ascended. By combining Light and Darkness into one, you have achieved the Chaos form, which in turn opened a rift that allowed us to wander slightly from the cage that kept us from this realm." _

Riku looked at the white dragon and asked her while still in awe of all of this "Are you two the spirit guardians of the Light and Darkness elements?"

Sodenko quietly giggled as a subtle means of portraying her thoughts, while Takashi went for the more blunt approach and said _"If there are any guardians, I'd feel sorry for anyone who would have to watch over the madman that your darkness originated from, boy." _

The teenage Overlord looked up at Takashi and said to him "What do you mean by that?"

Riku was legitimately curious to know what the black dragon was getting at, since he had always wondered where his Dark powers came from and Mew was too far away from him to get any answers from. But the dragon merely slapped the front of his face in disbelief and bemoaned _"You truly are ignorant of everything…"_

As he pulls his hand away from his face though, the dragon quietly and hesitantly says _"But still, you do not deserve to be left blind about this monster."_

Takashi looks down at Riku and explains to him _"Your creator, the second child, currently harbors within him the spirit of the demonic entity 'D.', the former second-in-command of the Dark King himself. He tried to prevent the darkness from reaching into you when you were created, but that monster managed to do the task with ease. Surely you have noticed a second presence in your body by now?"_

The teenage Overlord shrugs his shoulders and says to the black dragon bluntly "No, I haven't noticed anything." After saying that he thinks to himself in a melancholy tone of voice _"…Wow, so that's why Mew didn't implant any memories regarding his darkness, because he didn't want me to worry about him…I hope he's alright."_

"_Last we noticed, he hasn't been possessed by 'D.'" _Takashi notes, which surprised the teenage Overlord greatly as it sounded as though the dragon was responding to his thoughts.

"Y-You heard my thoughts?" Riku decided to ask.

"…_Of course I did." _The dragon snidely commented, continuing on to mention _"All of your thoughts have become one with Light and Darkness…Not just that, but your blood and flesh belong to it as well. As we are both one with those elements, we can now hear and feel everything you do while you are in this form." _

Riku goes silent for a few seconds after Takashi had finished his explanation, and as Sodenko coils back through space to float beside her brother the teenage Overlord looks up at them and asks "So if you guys aren't spirit guardians…What are you?"

Takashi was about to respond in his usually brash manner, but Sodenko went ahead of him and said to the boy _"We are cursed…Long ago, when we were young and unsurprisingly foolish, we touched the mythical cores of Light and Darkness that bound our tribes together in harmony…Unworthy to be even in their presence, the orbs transformed us into these draconic creatures and sealed us away in a blank realm as punishment for our defilement."_

The teenage Overlord looks at the two dragons afterwards, and while he thought sympathetically towards their situation he brandished a finger at Sodenko and then Takashi before saying to them "So in essence, you guys are the dragons of Light and Darkness respectively."

Sodenko giggled at what Riku had said while Takashi scoffed, with the white dragon saying gently towards the boy _"In a way, yes we are."_

Riku's thoughts then lingered back towards a previous subject that had been bothering him for some time, and he quickly asked the two dragons "So I would assume you have plenty of knowledge regarding the two elements, right?"

Sodenko nods, and the teenage Overlord follows up on this non-verbal answer by hesitantly asking "…So then the two of you have to know something about how to resurrect the dead with those elements, right?"

Takashi abruptly interjects, saying harshly towards her sister as he swings his massive claw towards where the boy stands _"Do not give him the answer he seeks sister! This one-way minded child is not worthy of such a thing."_

Riku slyly smiles at Takashi, saying to him after he has finished speaking "So you DO know something."

Takashi turns towards the teenage Overlord and says to him with his claws folded in front of his chest _"Though I do, I am not going to be so naïve as to loosen my lips like my sister has so carelessly chosen to do. And my sister cannot say anything regarding this unless we are both in agreement on the matter." _

"Then what do I have to do in order to earn your approval, oh mighty dragon of Darkness?" Riku calmly inquires.

Takashi quickly scoffs and draws his arms away from his chest, reaching down into the right part of his belt as he pulls out his triangular blade while Sodenko quietly shakes her head in disapproval but nonetheless stays by her brother's side as he says _"Prove to me that you can cast away the blindness covering both your mind and eyes, child, and you will receive your answer and more." _

Riku glances at the two dragons in surprise, saying to Sodenko in particular "Wait, are you going to fight me as well?"

The white dragon nods her head and says to the boy _"Forgive me, sire Overlord, but this is for your own good. Now, please draw your weapons and prepare for battle…" _

The teenage Overlord nods his head and with a little hesitation he pulled out his katana with his right hand and draws his new dagger into his left, staring up at the two mighty dragons as they high over his little asteroid home.

_Next Time: The Fall_


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5: The Mighty Chaos**

"_How are these two going to fight me?" _Riku quietly questioned in his mind, knowing that with such wording the two dragons would not respond to him with words. The teenage Overlord holds his sword beside his body and puts his dagger in front of his eyes, looking closely at the dark red blade and noticing that it appeared to be shaped like a dragon's fang. His interest in the design of the dagger lasted only a moment though as he turned back at the two dragons as Takashi stated to his sister _"Let us not waste our time on this matter."_

"_Are you sure you want to do that, brother?" _Sodenko asks as though responding to something that the brother had said. This puzzled Riku, since he didn't hear any question spoken by the black dragon.

"I guess the thought listening ability doesn't work in reverse…" Riku quietly observes to himself as he swings his sword back in front of his body to get himself into a defensive stance.

"_Sister, you need to not hesitate here. The child wishes to prove his strength, then it would be wrong for us to not heed his wishes." _Takashi says to his sister.

Sodenko then nods her head, and her body starts to glow a strange eerie white while Takashi's body radiates with a warm dark purple aura. The white dragon then flies in front of her brother and begins to twirl around him while the black dragon holds his arms out on both sides of his body calmly closes his eyelids. Sodenko starts to transform into a ring of pure light as her lithe body wraps around the center of his brother's enormous mass, and as she increases her speed rapidly and slowly begins to envelop her brother in a gigantic whirling cocoon that emerges both above and below herself.

As this cocoon appears, Riku feels the asteroid he is standing on getting pushed away while also noting the fact that all other asteroids around the cocoon are being pushed outward. The rift and chains that had kept the two dragons tethered to a specific point in time had also vanished, making the teenage Overlord feel rather concerned about what was going to emerge from the cocoon. He froze up slightly, even though he tried to force a confident smile on his face as he stared up at the cocoon.

The cocoon then burst open in all directions, and emerging from it was a dragon even larger than Takashi. It had the same build as the black dragon, but it was now covered in a black and white gradient armor with relatively tiny fangs protruding from both sides. The front of the armor had a distorted face on the front of it with pale dark purple eyes and a fanged mouth, and the belt that was normally on Takashi had disappeared completely and was replaced with a loose grey chain mail that extended down to the top of his feet.

The scales of the dragon were white on the face to the neck, grey from the bottom of the neck to the middle of his stomach and out to his arms, and finally they were black from the bottom half of the stomach down to the legs. Much like Riku, the dragon's eyes were dark yellow on the left and pure white on the right while still maintaining the human-like element they had before. Finally, the dragon revealed his weapon by extending his large right claw into the air and summoning forth a dual-sided weapon. The triangular blade Takashi wielded is at the top, though now the blade had gotten long enough that it was now half the height of his body, while the bottom half consisted of a scepter with three jewels bunched together, each one representing the color of the scales on the dragon's body.

The dragon looks down at the boy, and upon opening his mouth his voice has become a combination of Sodenko and Takashi's _"Now you shall face the power of the Lord of Chaos, whose name has forever been lost to the confines of time itself but the fear inspired by his legacy lingers forever across the universe!" _

Riku, as his body trembles at the might of this gargantuan dragon that dwarves anything he has ever seen before, continues to look at him and says in turn "I'm not afraid of you! For the sake of gaining the power to revive those who should not fall, I will topple even the mightiest of giants!"

The Lord of Chaos then flips his weapon around and points the three-jeweled staff at the teenage Overlord, saying in a snide tone of voice _"Then prepare to understand just how insurmountable such a task will be."_

The black gem on the scepter glows, and without warning Riku feels a powerful impact against his body as a barely visible shockwave of energy thrusts across the depths of space and cuts the asteroid he created in two. The teenage Overlord is then launched into space, his body frozen stiff in place for a bit until he can recover from the blow, only to find that he was now miles away from the asteroid field. With eyes partially widened, Riku thinks quietly to himself _"N-No way…He didn't even touch me…" _

The teenage Overlord looks out into the distance and sees the gigantic dragon in the middle of the asteroid, breathing a momentarily sigh of relief as he realizes that the creature had no way of reaching him from there. He readied his katana for battle and prepared to infuse his blade with light for use in battle. But as he tries to invoke the power of light with his mind he is shocked to see that nothing is happening with his katana.

"What?" He murmured out, having a very hard time believing that his powers could not be working. _"Did that dragon do something to my powers?"_

"_Are you really wasting your time by asking such meaningless questions?" _The Lord of Chaos replies in a vocal manner, the loudness of his voice making Riku's heart skip a beat as he looks up and notices that the gargantuan dragon was floating just a fair distance away from him.

"_I did nothing to your powers. Can you not cast aside the blindness in your mind and realize what is truly going on here?" _The dragon asks in an overly arrogant tone of voice.

Riku, not understanding what the Lord of Chaos was getting at, drew his katana at him without hesitation and flew straight at him to go on the offensive, causing the gargantuan dragon to sigh as he stays still and lets the teenage Overlord strike the front of his armor with a powerful swing of his katana. The armor doesn't even get nicked by the sharpness of the boy's weapon, causing Riku to once more flinch in shock and murmur out the word "Impossible…" in a disbelieving breath.

The teenage Overlord then feels the dragon move and quickly flies backwards as though his life was in danger, even though the dragon merely spoke up and said to him _"…It seems as though I was right to assume otherwise."_

Raising the staff portion of his weapon high above him, the mighty dragon declares down upon the teenage Overlord _"The power to revive the dead you so desperately and foolishly seek…Allow me to show you what can be done in the hands of the one truly worthy master!" _

This time the white jewel on the scepter glows, and from this large gemstone emerges a bright white sun that is roughly a fourth of the size of the dragon's body.

Riku quickly holds his hands towards the air and tries to take control of the sun with his control over the light element, but as the sun rapidly plummets towards his armored body he finds that the sun isn't even budging an inch no matter how hard he tries. "Why aren't my powers working?" The teenage Overlord bemoans in a panicked tone of voice as the sun grows larger with every growing second.

Pulling his hands back, the teenage Overlord tries to move out of the way of the sun's path by flying backwards, but his body becomes immobile without warning. As a matter of fact, Riku's body started to get pulled towards the sun itself, with his wings folding in the direction of the manmade celestial body as he pours all of his strength into trying to detach away from its gravitational pull. But all the strain he puts into his muscles only serves to hurt the boy more as the pull of the sun grows strong enough to the point that he is dragged straight into the celestial body only a few seconds later.

The searing power of pure light burns into Riku's very soul, and as he is dragged into the very center of the sun the teenage Overlord feels as if half of his body is now alit with flames even though such effects are not present on him at that moment. Blinded by all around him, Riku is so engulfed by these many detrimental effects that he cannot even bring a single thought to his mind that was unrelated to the pain, something the dragon could sense from outside the sun as he lowers his staff and binds the sun to it once more with the white jewel.

The Lord of Chaos then speaks out, his voice echoing within the confines of the sun as he did so _"Do you now realize what is going on? Even though you have unlocked the Chaos form, it makes not a single bit of difference you have not acquired the answer related to the form itself. Without such a key component, light and darkness are considered null within your very body." _

The teenage Overlord doesn't respond, even when the Lord of Chaos lowers the power of the light sun with but a thought to allow him the chance. Disappointed, the mighty dragon says _"…Forget it, I was wrong to suspect that you would ever become anything but blind to the truth of Light and Darkness." _

The Lord of Chaos then glances to the left at the sun that was in the distance and turned his body towards it, pointing his staff in that direction and letting the black jewel glow brightly towards the light sun. Another impact strikes the sun, this time being powerful enough to release three large, barely visible shockwaves from the back of the celestial body. With Riku still naturally inside, the light sun is sent hurtling like an unstoppable celestial bullet towards the real sun, both his body and the cage that traps him piercing through the scorching hot surface and sending him straight through the sun's incredibly incinerating core before he is shot out from the other side.

Despite being in there for only under ten seconds, it was quite a miracle that Riku was not killed by being flung through the sun. His armor likely absorbed most of the heat, but even then it was quite impressive that he was still alive. But the Lord of Chaos was not done with him yet, for with a reappearance along the path that the boy was traveling on was followed up by the dragon switching to his bladed weapon and swiftly cleaving the sun of light in half.

The depths of space were painted for three seconds with a swathe of blood red light, followed up by the very cleaving act scarring the atmosphere even further with a dimensional tear that Riku is launched into after being torn out of the light sun.

Plummeting into this dimension blanketed with pure black, the teenage Overlord is robbed of all sight and sound and pain, with the last thing he can remember being that the last attack from the Lord of Chaos cut a deep scar into the vertical center of his armor that very nearly nicked his skin. As Riku tumbled through this dimension without any idea as to where he was going, he suddenly felt something grasp tightly around his body. He couldn't tell how hard he was being squeezed, nor could he tell how big the hand itself actually was.

All he knew is that he was caught and could not escape. _"This is ridiculous…The dragon has to have neutralized my powers somehow, but what can I do about it?" _

As he asked this ever important question, whatever was grabbing onto him slammed him against a wall in this otherwise blank dimension. Within seconds of being repeatedly hit against the wall the dimension is broken open, flinging Riku back into the depths of space with his body falling flat against the front half of the asteroid that has been his home for the last few months.

All at once the pain of being flung through the sun and being crushed by a mysterious force in that dark dimension catches up to the teenage Overlord, as searing pain echoes across his muscles and the feeling of snapped tendons joins in the agony inflicted upon his body. Riku collapses onto his knees, barely supported by the dagger he quickly pulled out and pressed against the surface of the asteroid. The Lord of Chaos appears in all of his gargantuan glory in front of the boy, and says in a haughty tone as he stares down at the his struggle against the pain _"Now do you understand the forces you are dealing with here? Has all this now been enough to let you see the truth?"_

Riku stares up defiantly at the powerful dragon, gritting his teeth and saying as well as he can "Bite me…How can I prove anything…When you dampened my powers?!"

The Lord of Chaos merely glared in disbelief down at the boy, saying to him in an all too angered tone of voice that echoes through the boundaries of space itself _"Enough! You have tested my patience well-enough child! It is obvious that you are too blind to see the truth. You are not worthy of controlling light and darkness with such a blind mind…You are not worthy of carrying the Elemental Overlord's legacy…You are worthy of not even the fake body of flesh created by the original fake Overlord…"_

Raising his staff high above him, the Lord of Chaos activates the grey jewel on it, focusing entirely on the asteroid that the boy is on as he exclaims _"Understand now what you are up against, and hold in your heart the truth about how insignificant you truly are in the scope of this universe with such a blind mind! Fall! Oblivion Point!"_

In a mere instance, time and space and light and darkness collapse down around the teenage Overlord's asteroid home. The crack that was split into the boy's armor widens against its will as the rest of his body feels everything coming down around him, his body distorting in pain as everything he built here crumbles apart in a mere instance.

At the command of the mighty Lord of Chaos, this collapsing of four universal components comes to a swift and abrupt end, and an explosion as powerful as that of a dying star's last breath erupts from the center of where everything collapsed. The shockwave from that explosion is kept within a barrier of light by the powerful dragon to amplify the pain inflicted upon the boy. When the shockwave has died out, the barrier disperses. Lying in the middle of emptiness created where the asteroid once was is Riku, whose armor has been completely shattered and his body is left lingering in the middle of it all.

The only reason he is still alive at this point is because the capsule of air he created earlier, which was the only thing to survive the attack besides the boy himself. With his deed done, the Lord of Chaos quickly glows a bright grey and splits back into his two smaller halves, and the rift opens up behind them again as they do so. Sodenko quickly floats towards the boy, examining his battered body before glancing back at his brother and saying _"That was unnecessarily cruel, brother." _

"_Do not give him your sympathy any longer, sister. You saw well enough for our combined point of view that he shall never change, no matter what may push him to do so!" _Takashi bluntly proclaims, and without hesitation he draws his sword from the hilt of his belt and slowly inches closer towards the boy.

"_It should be considered a miracle that you have even lived this long. You don't deserve to waste anyone else's time…Your existence is an affront to the universe, so your death will only prove beneficial." _Takashi prepared to raise his arm and deliver the final blow to Riku, but Sodenko quickly gleamed at her brother and froze his arm in place, which did nothing but infuriate the black dragon.

Before Takashi could open his lips though, Sodenko sealed them up with more of her strange magic, saying to him afterwards _"You will not lay another hand on the child. You have done enough, brother…Now return back to the void." _

Sodenko then flinches in shock along with her brother, for both suddenly sensed a bit of a spark of life coming from the teenage Overlord. Riku slowly pushes his battered body awake, raising himself upward just enough that he'd be able to stare the black dragon straight in the eyes. His fury at the dragon was clear, and the first thing he declared after pushing the remaining reservoirs of strength he had "You bastard…After you rigged that battle in your favor you had the audacity to try and kill me?!"

"…_I will no longer hear the words of someone as blind as you." _Takashi bluntly states as he sheathes his weapon and turns back towards the tear that leads into the blank realm.

"I can't believe you would do that after I freed you from your imprisonment! You should be grateful, but instead you've done nothing but act like a sniveling little child!" Riku proclaims in desperate anger.

Takashi takes pause upon hearing this and glances back at the boy, saying to him in a calm but very blunt tone of voice _"Do you think I am incapable of expressing gratitude? If I saw any reason to thank you for what you had done for us, then I would…But the sheer possibility of having to have someone as blind and fool hearted as my master is something I consider to be a much worse fate than all the years I spent in that void. If anything, you should consider yourself grateful that I did not choose to kill you. If you ever again try to utilize that which you do not deserve though, I will finish the job, regardless of how my sister opposes me." _

Takashi then disappears back into the void, with Riku lowering his head in a defeated manner as Sodenko takes one mere glance at him before choosing to follow her brother back into the realm for the time being. The teenage Overlord felt utterly crushed in the face of his defeat, and it would take a few days of him lingering silently in the middle of his capsule of air before he would even think about moving again…

_Next Time: The Chaos Answer_


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6: A Thin Grey Line**

After recovering from his absolutely devastating defeat at the hands of the mighty Lord of Chaos, Riku quietly went on to try and reestablish his asteroid home. He pulled another asteroid of a similar size from the field around him that survived the battle with the gigantic dragon, making sure the air capsule fit around it as he put it into place. He then landed down upon it and cultivated another field of grass and a garden once again, the whole process taking two days before he was completely finished.

The teenage Overlord, after refilling his depleted energy reserves with fresh food and water he created on his own, he went back to meditating like he did when he was done with his first segments of form training. He was now reflecting on the battle with the Lord of Chaos and the words Takashi pounded into his head time after time again. _"What answer am I missing? Why can't I use my powers of Light and Darkness in that Chaos form?" _

Riku, no matter how hard he tries to come up with a solution to this predicament, is only met with a wall of intense frustration that causes him to create a grit teeth scowl, and when his frustration reaches his peak he slams the ground beside where he sits with a clenched fist. Having not fully healed though, the impact of his knuckles with the hard surface of the asteroid cracks the bones underneath, but the feeling wasn't painful enough to cause him to do anything more than grimace.

Pulling his hand away from the asteroid surface after unfurling his fingers, Riku lets out a tired sigh and says quietly to himself "…I thought I would learn the secret of resurrection, but I've gotten tangled up in something much bigger than I could have ever expected."

The teenage Overlord gets on his feet and stretches his arms upward, letting out another sigh before he thinks to himself _"What could I be missing?" _

Lowering his arms, Riku holds his right hand in front of his face and summons his double-helix sword, and now that he has unlocked the Chaos form he pays close attention to the black and white color scheme of his blade and says "…If I wasn't meant to wield the Chaos form, then why is my sword colored like that?"

"_Don't doubt your worthiness, sire Overlord." _The voice of the white dragon makes Riku turn his head and cause his heart to skip a beat as he leaps a foot back, followed by him tripping up and crashing down on his back due to being disoriented from the shock. The lithe white dragon closes her eyelids and smiles, giggling internally as the teenage Overlord grimaces from his fall while slowly pulling himself into a upright sitting position.

Looking up at the white dragon, Riku lets out a sigh of relief and says in a calm and respectful tone of voice "Oh, its only you Sodenko…"

The teenage Overlord, after folding his legs in a criss-cross position and planting his right hand against the top of his knee, looks up into the human-like eyes of the white dragon and says to her "What are you doing out?" He doesn't acknowledge the place she emerged from as a prison out of politeness towards her.

"_I just wanted to make sure that you were alright. I'm sorry once again for what my brother did to you…He had the most control over our combined form, after all." _Sodenko says in a serene, honest tone of voice.

Riku merely shrugs his shoulders and says "Eh, you don't need to apologize for him. If anything, he should be the one out here telling me that he's sorry for what he had done."

Sodenko goes silent and turns her head away from the teenage Overlord, causing the boy to look at her and quietly ask "…Is something the matter Sodenko?"

The white dragon whispers in response to the boy's inquiry _"…My brother did have a point though. You do not know enough about Light and Darkness to utilize the full power of the Chaos form." _

Riku, with an irritated scowl on his face, looks at Sodenko and exclaims towards her "You think that hasn't been hammered into my head enough times by now?! I've only been alive for god knows how many months, and I have spent a ton of time unconscious or traumatized! Of course I'm going to be blind when it comes to some things, I haven't exactly had the free time to think much about it, so that ungrateful brother of yours can just get off my back on this matter!"

Sodenko quickly turns to face the teenage Overlord and glares angrily at him, causing the furious Riku to take pause and realize who he was taking his anger out on and says in a quiet, apologetic tone of voice towards the white dragon "…Sorry Sodenko, you shouldn't be the one taking the brunt of my frustration."

The teenage Overlord then goes on to mention "That brother of yours really irritates me though. I mean what is his problem? There has to be more to his dislike of me besides the fact that I'm 'so blind'."

"_There is, actually." _Sodenko turns to face the teenage Overlord and says those few words, grabbing the boy's attention as he looks up and simply says "Huh?"

The white dragon curls up into a coiled form in the air above the asteroid and says to the teenage Overlord _"Allow me to tell you a brief story from our past, sire Overlord." _

"_In ancient times, there were two siblings born of two separate tribes conjoining together in matrimony. Their marriage was forbidden as decreed by the leaders of both tribes, but the task was performed in secret so neither side would be aware of the deception being performed behind their backs. Even the birth of the two children were kept secret from the two tribe leaders. When both kids reached a certain age, they were separated from each other and sent to live with their mother and father respectively under the guise of adopted children._

_The leaders were none the wiser towards this deception as the years passed, and the two children lived accustomed to the laws and ways of the tribes their parents were in. The brother learned the ways of darkness, while the sister learned the ways of light. In secret, both siblings met in the wastelands outside the villages and shared their experiences with each other, finding delight in each other's activities as they met._

_But eventually the brother grew tired of the secrecy, feeling as though the laws of the two villages needed to change for prosperity to blossom. Thus he conjured up an idea out of spite towards the leaders. In secret once more, the two siblings would sneak into the sacred temples that the leaders had kept guarded with the utmost powerful of their servants and steal the energy reserves of Light and Darkness, merging them with their own bodies and wrenching control away from the leaders._

_This greedy lust for power drove the brother to blindness, and he didn't realize the danger he was putting both himself and the sister in as they entered the temples. The servants, so connected to the elements they worshipped, knew far too easily that the children were entering the temples and surrounded them when they were just mere seconds away from grabbing the orbs. The leaders of both tribes confronted the captured children and upon revealing that they knew the truth about their parents, killed the mother and father before their very eyes._

_Then, utilizing the powers of the energy reserves, the leaders transformed the two siblings into dragons and cast them away into an empty void as punishment for their transgressions. The Elemental Overlord, hearing of these outrageous acts, gained assistance from the Dark King and banished the two leaders from their positions of power. The Overlord the took pity on the two siblings, and tried to do everything in his power to free them from their imprisonment. But not even he knew the secrets of both Light and Darkness, and thus failed in his endeavors…"_

With Sodenko's story at an end, Riku says to her in an empathetic tone of voice "…I'm sorry to hear that happened to you."

The white dragon nods her head to accept the boy's empathy, saying to him in a quiet tone _"My brother, who has had two-thousand years to reflect upon his mistakes, sees a lot of his old self in you. In the end, every time he yells at you, he is only expressing anger towards him-"_

"_Enough, sister!" _Takashi angered exclamation fills the void of space as his sister turned her head to look at him as he draws his sword and brandishes it at her, with Riku quickly pushing himself onto his feet in a panic towards what was happening.

"Takashi, what are you doing? I know you probably hate your sister for revealing such secrets to me, but now I understand what-" Riku's attempt to calm Takashi down is met with the black dragon pointing the tip of his sword at him and saying in an irritated tone of voice _"I see that your blindness doesn't extend to just one junction, child."_

Turning his sword back on his sister, Takashi proclaims _"Enough with your games, sister. You will not deceive another person while I am watching over you!"_

Suddenly, Sodenko gains a rather eerie air around her body as she slyly states towards Takashi _"Brother…Whatever do you mean?"_

Riku, puzzled by the sudden shift in attitude by Sodenko and the aggressive stance Takashi took against his sister, exclaimed out to them "Hey now, what's going on here?!"

The black dragon, with a snide glance towards the teenage Overlord as he kept his sword pointed at his sister, said to him _"Everything my sister just told you is a lie to dull your senses even further away from the truth." _

The teenage Overlord's eyes flinched in shock as Takashi boldly declared this to him, and with a glance over at the coiled white dragon in disbelief he said "T-That can't be…Sodenko is-"

Takashi interrupts the boy without hesitation, saying to him in a very serious tone of voice _"Do you believe my sister to be innocent? Far from it…The truth of the matter is, SHE is the one responsible for our current condition!"_

Before Takashi was about to explain the truth to the teenage Overlord, Sodenko glances at her brother's mouth and seals it shut with light energy. The black dragon quickly raises his left claw into the air and moves it towards the seal to tear it off, but his arm is left paralyzed by a single glance. Riku proclaims in angered disbelief towards the white dragon "Sodenko! Let go of your brother and let him explain himself!"

Sodenko, despite how much she loathed the situation she was in, chose to listen to the boy and quickly released her grip on her brother's body. She then unfurled herself from her coiled state and smiled at her brother, saying in a teasing tone of voice _"Come on then brother…Reveal the 'truth' to the boy." _

"_With pleasure." _Takashi says after taking a moment to catch his breath. He keeps his sword unsheathed for the moment simply because he still doesn't trust his sister to not try something while he is talking.

"_The first part of my sister's story is correct, in that we were siblings born in secrecy via a marriage carried out in secret. However, when it comes to who we were adopted to, that is where the lies began. I was given to my mother and learned the secrets of the Light element, while my sister was given to my father and learned the ways of Darkness. While we both diligently learned what both elements had to offer, the way we shared our knowledge in the wastelands was far from simple…_

_We always engaged in combat, but having learned much about Darkness my sister would always be an aggressive beast on the battlefield. It was almost frightening to fight against her since she knew not when to stop, even when it nearly got to the point where my bones were ready to break. She enjoyed the power of darkness far too much, and every time I lost she would taunt me and every time I happened to win she would merely go silent and scowl. _

_One day when we were fighting, however, the Elemental Overlord himself happened to come across he. He stopped our fight without so much as any effort and told my sister to listen closely to his advice. 'It is ok to forge a powerful sword, but only if you have the diligence to not let its power consume you.' Those words were meant to make my sister consider that she should not let the darkness consume her, but if she had listened to him then we would not be in this situation now…_

_Misinterpreting what was said, my sister thought that the Elemental Overlord was pushing her to get even stronger so long as she stayed in the right of mind. Blind to her increasing greed and instability, my sister sought to absorb the darkness energy reserves into her body and become the strongest of all. Knowing how well she was at deception, I feared that she would be able to bypass the servants and obtain the power she desired. So I did what was considered forbidden and snuck into our tribe's sanctuary to obtain the power of Light to counteract my sister if she were to succeed._

_But when we touched the energy reserves, fate decided to deal us an ironic fate, for they transformed my sister into a dragon of light while I was transformed into a dragon of darkness. Our bodies were quickly cast away into the empty void, but our entrapment alerted the tribes' two leaders and caused them to arrive at the sanctuaries to examine what had happened. It was there they detected our energy signatures, and from there they were able to deduct the truth behind our parents' deception and had them swiftly executed for what we had done._

_This struck a cord in my sister's heart, and I had assumed that she was beginning to regret her actions…But instead she murmured that she couldn't believe how pathetic her parents were and quickly sunk quietly besides me. Outraged, I was almost ready to kill my sister then and there, but the gravity of the situation struck me before I could do the job. Our parents were dead, and I was trapped in this void with my sister. Even though this was her fault, I couldn't bear the thought of killing her because I would be left alone forever._

_But not long after we became trapped in this void, the Elemental Overlord came to the tribes of Light and Darkness along with the Dark King. The part of my sister's story where the leaders were banished from power are true, but the reasons for it were different. The leaders apparently had been involved in a conspiracy to usurp the other elemental tribes from power and do away with the Elemental Overlord himself. But after dealing with the leaders, the Elemental Overlord sensed our presence from beyond the realm of the living and began to speak to us both._

_Believing in second chances, the Elemental Overlord took it upon himself to try and free us both from our cage, but for all of his effort he couldn't accomplish the task. He left a promise to us both though that we would be freed someday, when the right person would arise. But I didn't want another person to save us…The original Elemental Overlord understood what had happened to us, he tried to save us regardless of what brought us to this point! When I learned that a child who knew nothing of what had come beforehand was to be our savior, I was understandably outraged…"_

Drawing his blade back towards his sister, Takashi proceeded to say now that his story was over _"But not as outraged as I was to learn that even after all these years, my sister has learned nothing! Even as a dragon of light, you are still tainted by your dark desire to deceive and obtain power!" _

"_And you are still as naïve as ever, my dear, foolish brother." _Sodenko replies gently with, basically admitting then and there that Takashi's story was true.

Riku was greatly puzzled by the truth, and it made him flip his perception of both dragons upside-down in an instant. Before he became too dizzy thanks to all that he had to think about, he quickly sat on the ground of the asteroid and began to meditate while the two sibling dragons bickered amongst one another. Taking a few deep breaths in and out while focusing intensely on all this information, the teenage Overlord began to draw an interesting conclusion from all this.

"_Takashi was born and raised to learn the Light element, and Sodenko was raised to learn the Dark element…But they were transformed into dragons that represent their antithesis…An ironic fate, certainly, but could it be that this information might help me learn this so-called 'answer'? …Wait a minute! Its all clear to me now!" _Swiftly rising back up to his feet with a confident smirk on his face, Riku pulled his sword out and focused onto it, combining both Light and Darkness together to change into his Chaos form.

His sudden transformation drew Takashi and Sodenko away from their argument, and the black dragon said with a disgusted scowl on his face _"Did I not say that I did not want to see you in that form again, child?"_

Riku says without fear towards either dragon "Become the Lord of Chaos right now. This time, I want to show you both a certain truth."

Takashi and Sodenko look towards each other, and despite their earlier argument they quickly choose to fuse together to become the Lord of Chaos. With the titanic dragon floating before the teenage Overlord, his voice echoes forward and says _"This shall be your last chance, child. If you fail, you die!" _

Riku, smiling brightly as certain thoughts race through his mind, reaches for the handle of his katana and begins to pull it out, a tiny glimmer of light shining between the bottom of the handle and the rim of the hilt as he says to the defiant dragon "Don't worry, I only need one more chance to sever you from this fate."

_Next Time: Taming Chaos_


	7. Final Chapter

**Final Chapter: Intertwining Chaotic Fate**

The Lord of Chaos makes the first move against the teenage Overlord, raising his staff into the air just like before and activating the black jewel on top of it. Riku takes his dagger out from his left hilt and holds it in front of his body as the jewel starts to shine while holding his katana directly behind him for the time being. _"So you'll manipulate the area of space around me for your attack, but if I'm right…" _The boy thinks entirely to himself, and the fact that the titanic dragon does not respond to him means something major has changed now.

An impact of pure space collides with the front of Riku's dagger, creating a powerful shockwave that once again ruptures the asteroid he is on in half. But the teenage Overlord's body is not sent flying through space because of it, leading the Lord of Chaos to raise his right eyebrow in suspicion as he notices that the shockwaves still ruptured in front of the boy's body. Riku swings his dagger off to the side and brings his katana back to the front, pointing it up at the titanic dragon with a smile on his face as a means of taunting the mighty creature to try another attack.

Switching his staff around to the sword, the Lord of Chaos pulls his arm back with a streak of light connected to the elbow signifying how fast he's moving it. This is then followed up by him swinging it downward at the boy, hitting the side of the katana with the heavy edge of the blade with enough force to cause another shockwave to emerge from the side of Riku's body, this one consisting of pure darkness. But once again, the boy doesn't even budge an inch despite the asteroid being broken up around him.

When he attacked this time, however, the Lord of Chaos happened to notice a barely visible field of darkness coming out from the side of the boy. _"Now what is this?" _The titanic dragon says in slight confusion as he pulls his blade away from the impact zone a slight inch and nudges it against the field he saw before. Without putting so much force into the attack, the dragon is able to put more effort into noticing the field, and with an annoyed scowl on his face the Lord of Chaos says _"How did you create this?"_

Riku smirks at the titanic dragon and says to him "I have my tricks, you have yours. But now I've figured out how everything you do works, so its time for you to have fun figuring me out."

The Lord of Chaos raises his staff high into the air after flipping the sword point towards the bottom, saying to the slyly spoken boy _"You have nothing in your 'arsenal' that I have a reason to fear. I AM Chaos embodied in a physical shell, all is bared to me, nothing can ever remain hidden!"_

The titanic dragon of Chaos focuses just a little bit on the area around his body, creating an aura of gradient black and white that exudes around him like a wave of excruciating heat, but Riku does not choose to flinch. However, he places his katana horizontally in front of his body and holds the dull edge outward, watching as the mighty dragon begins to open his mouth up wide. Finally living up to his species' name, the Lord of Chaos slowly begins to create cascading flames that flash between white and black rapidly as they grow stronger with each second.

But the teenage Overlord stands defiantly on the edge of the asteroid, keeping his sword gripped calmly as he closes his eyes and waits for the Lord of Chaos to attack. With his mouth still opened wide, the titanic dragon unleashes a stream of flames that combines the energies of both light and darkness together into a compressed cylindrical form. With the beam starting at the bottom of the boy's feet, the dragon raises his head up to drag the beam across his entire body in an instance, in the process also succeeding in atomizing half of the asteroid field until his head rises up all the way.

Once the Lord of Chaos looks down upon the smoke created from the remnants of all the destroyed asteroids, he sees a slight glow of light coming from the center of it, but upon mistaking it for the field he witnessed before he is quickly struck in the bottom of the face by a wave of raw light energy that hits him in a mere nanosecond. The impact of the attack pushes his head backwards a bit, and though the titanic dragon quickly recovers he doesn't look at all pleased to have taken the brunt of that last attack.

Riku swings his four wings outward to blow apart the smoke around him, and as the field of light and darkness surrounding his body splits apart he swings his katana in front of his body in the aftermath of his previous attack and quickly brandishes the tip at the Lord of Chaos while saying to him "Alright, I'm done defending now. I think I've made my point, so lets move on to the true battle, hmm?"

The Lord of Chaos looks down at the boy, finding his confidence to be incredibly annoying as he scowls and says to him _"…Do you believe that you have learned something? Very well, then lets see how you can stand up to THIS!"_

With a thrust of his staff down towards the boy, the titanic dragon wasted no time in making the white jewel glow and creating another sun of pure light right in front of the teenage Overlord. The boy appears to be entrapped in the white sun, and the Lord of Chaos quickly captures the sun in the pull of his staff and upon raising it up in front of his chest the titanic dragon launches the boy once again towards the large sun in the distance.

Like before, Riku is sent through the sun, but this time around the boy saw the move coming and quickly used his control over the Light element to keep the sun a few feet away from his body. He went along with the Lord of Chaos' attack, using a shield of light around himself to weaken the heat of the inside of the sun as he is tossed through it. As he emerges from the other side he starts to flip himself around, taking the white sun with him as the Lord of Chaos suddenly appears in all of his gigantic glory.

The titanic dragon prepared to execute the dimensional tearing slash with his sword that thrust the boy into the empty void, but as the blade comes down Riku thrusts his hands forward to send the white sun at the Lord of Chaos. The fake celestial body crashes into the center of the dragon's armored chest, and the ensuing explosion of light not only breaks the armored plating apart but it also strikes the skin behind it hard enough to make the beast break his concentration on his attack and stumble back in space.

Riku wastes little time by quickly pulling out his katana and dagger, igniting them both in the pale glows of light and darkness respectively as he charges at the disoriented Lord of Chaos with his body transforming into a streak of both elements that allows him to cross the necessary distance in a nanosecond.

Once in front of the armor, the teenage Overlord throws his dagger at the largest crack, and as it is lodged into it the darkness buried within spreads through the entirety of the crack and creates a dark black glowing scar across the chest of this beast. As the Lord of Chaos starts to recover, Riku pushes backwards with a forward swipe of his wings while raising his glowing katana high into the air.

Now that he was a proper distance away from the black scar he created, the teenage Overlord charges forward and swings his blade downward, crashing the sharp part of it against the handle of the dagger to shatter the whole weapon apart and infuse the black scar with pure light. The combination of the two elements cannot be contained within the crack in the armor, and as Riku flies back out of the way the fusion of elements bursts outward and completely shatters the armor plating away from the chest of the dragon.

As the shards of this strange metal spreads and float across the depths of space, Riku extends his left hand down to the now empty hilt and taps it. In a matter of seconds another dagger spawns from the darkness into it. The destruction of his armor along with the brunt of Chaos energy striking his now vulnerable skin shocks the Lord of Chaos, who says in a surprised stutter towards the boy _"You actually turned my attack against me…Hmph, I guess you did learn something from our previous battle. Very well then, its time for me to stop relying on stuff from the past." _

The titanic dragon quickly took his staff and points it at the sun behind the teenage Overlord and activates the grey jewel on his scepter. Riku knew something terrible was about to happen, something that was brought to pass as a large chunk of the sun's core was destroyed in an instance, causing the entire celestial body to begin destabilizing. Riku puts up his barrier of light and dark energy since he knew he would be unable to stop what was about to happen. The sun expands outward slowly, but then the Lord of Chaos activates the white jewel on his scepter and causes the large star to explode.

Waves of solar energy expand out in all directions through space, and both Riku and the Lord of Chaos are consumed by them. The high intensity of the solar energy dilutes the teenage Overlord's vision, and as he turns back around to try and find the titanic dragon he's unsurprised to see that he has vanished. _"You aren't pulling a trick like that on me again…" _

Riku quickly pulls out his dagger and stabs the area of heated space in front of his body, puncturing a hole in its delicate fabric and pulling downward to create a tear large enough for him to enter. He slips into the blank, sightless void that the dragon siblings had been trapped in, and the solar energy slipping into the void gives enough light for the teenage Overlord to quickly notice the figure of the Lord of Chaos slipping off into the distance.

Sealing the way out behind him, Riku thrusts his right hand forward and sends out a bullet of raw light towards the dragon. Even though the attack fails to hit thanks to the Lord of Chaos flipping his body around to cut the projectile down with his sword, the teenage Overlord is able to gauge just how far away the dragon is so he can swiftly turn into a streak of light and darkness and chase after the beast. With his connection to the two elements now perfectly established, Riku can feel his own body move through this cold, blank realm.

The Lord of Chaos attempts to make an escape through this realm, but Riku knew exactly where he was going and was easily able to keep up with him despite them moving at almost the same speed. _"This is the type of realm those two were trapped in? …This is ridiculous, why did the Elemental Overlord leave them in here?" _Riku thinks to himself as he nears the titanic dragon, simultaneously wondering why the beast was running away instead of fighting him head-on.

A hole in this realm is shattered open by a punch from the dragon, leading both warriors out into the starry depths of space. However, there was something that lied far below the feet of the Lord of Chaos as they emerged that caught Riku off guard. There was a large sphere of pure compressed darkness pulsating otherworldly sparks of crimson and yellow electricity, and to the left of it quite a long distance away was a holy looking sphere of pure blue cosmic energy. Before the boy could question the existence of both spheres, the Lord of Chaos swung his body around, his tail heading towards Riku and forcing the boy to rise up to avoid being struck by it.

When he was done rising, his body was level with the dragon's chest, and the creature quickly raised his staff above his head and said _"Do not concern yourself with those spheres below you…You only need to worry about what I plan to do with their energy."_

All three jewels on the staff glow as bright as miniature stars, and in an instance the two spheres below his body pulsate brightly as well. Darkness rises up from the black sphere in multiple distorted streams while the cosmic energy from the blue sphere rises in one natural, concentrated stream. The two streams meet at the center of the area above the Lord of Chaos' body, and as the energies conjoin into one unified form the scales corresponding to the two forces start to radiate with light in a very refined manner.

Riku is about to draw his katana to defend himself, but his body freezes up in place before his hand reaches the handle. There wasn't any energy binding himself in place, he was simply forced still by a mere thought from the Lord of Chaos. The gathering energies of Light and Darkness compress into a barely visible sphere above the center of the scepter's three jewels, and as the dragon connects the energies to his staff he begins to lower it while floating back through space. Pointing the combined sphere at the boy, the Lord of Chaos states _"I will say right now that I am impressed that you seem to have discovered the truth."_

"_But at the same time…" _The titanic dragon glares with slanted eyebrows and scowls, continuing on to say _"Will you hold onto the truth? Will it become a genuine part of your thoughts from here on out? Or are you merely deceiving yourself into believing this truth so you can obtain the power to fulfill your desires? Let this attack decide for me what is right here…Illumination Abyss: Judgment of the Truth!"_

Everything in the depths of space go silent as the sphere expands outward, but in a matter of seconds the deafening blast of pure light and darkness erupting from the sphere in a cone shaped form engulfs the frozen Riku. Having been told what this "judgment" entailed, the boy didn't flinch at all in fear. He knew what he believed in was genuine, and he wasn't going to lose this battle to any single doubt. Letting the light and darkness glow around his body, the teenage Overlord calmly closed his eyes and waited out this attack.

There was no way to gauge just how long it went on for, but when it came to an end Riku knew it and was able to gently open his eyelids up. The Lord of Chaos floated there in front of his body with staff held low beside him, and a quick raise of his head allows the boy to look at the utter disbelief on his face. _"…It seems as though…I was wrong…" _

Stating that as quietly as he could, the titanic dragon quickly split apart into his two separate halves, and both of them were chained back into the void. Takashi had a distressed look on his face, while Sodenko slyly smiled and said to the boy _"Congratulations, sire Overlord…You have truly become one with your Chaos form. You are worthy, just like the Elemental Overlord said you would be." _

After the earlier deception Sodenko tried to pull on him, Riku merely gave the dragon of "light" a peeved glare and turned to face Takashi, who began to murmur to himself _"…How did he learn the truth? …Did I underestimate how perceptive he was? …I don't understand what happened…"_

Riku floats up higher and goes close to Takashi's face, grabbing the black dragon's attention with his presence as he proceeds to say with a smiling expression "I really need to thank you, Takashi."

Takashi turns towards the boy and mutters out a puzzled _"…What?"_

The teenage Overlord nods his head and says "You were right. I was blind before. I only thought about Light and Darkness in one way before, I didn't think it was possible to see it as anything else then what I believed it could be. But by standing up to your sister's lies, you showed me the truth that I couldn't perceive otherwise…"

Riku turns towards the now coiled up Sodenko, waving his right hand towards her and saying to Takashi "One could wield the power of Light but still have a vile, tainted heart…"

The teenage Overlord turns back to look at the black dragon, saying to him with a kind smile on his face as he rests his right hand atop the side of his snout "Or someone could wield the power of Darkness, but be kind deep down in their heart…"

"…_You…" _Takashi stared at the boy with widened, disbelieving eyes, and as Riku pulls his hand back he says "Even after all your sister did, you still couldn't bring yourself to kill her. You always believed that deep down, she could grow past her vile intentions…"

As Riku speaks, he turns his head to look at the chain attached to Takashi's neck, and as the black dragon humbly spoke out _"S-Sire Overlord…" _the teenage Overlord drew his katana and said to him "Hold still for a moment, I'm going to try something."

Riku floats over to the side of the chain, and with a swift swing of his katana towards it he cuts the chain in half with relative ease. Takashi is left awestruck as the gripping pain of the chain breaks off from around his neck, and now that the only thing keeping him trapped in that void against his will was gone the black dragon could only stare at the kind boy in shock. This stare did not last for long though, as the dragon's human-like eyes tremble and he swiftly lowers the upper half of his body and puts himself on his hands and knees.

"_I'm sorry for ever doubting you, sire Overlord! I was a fool to think that you-" _As Takashi tries to apologize for his wrong-doings, Riku quickly says to him "Takashi, come on now, don't bend down like that."

Using his name in a respectful tone of voice is enough to get the black dragon to lift his head up and slowly but surely rise onto his feet, putting himself at eye level with the boy as he continues to say with a smile "And if you would prefer, you can just call me Riku. In all honesty, I think its silly to call me by such a regal title…"

Takashi nods his head and says to the boy _"If you insist…Riku." _The black dragon then cracked a smile afterwards.

The discussion between the boy and the now calmed black dragon was interrupted by Sodenko, who says to the teenage Overlord _"Riku, what about my chain?" _

Sodenko's attempt at earning favor from the boy by using his name didn't slip past his mind, and as he turned to face the white dragon with a serious look in his eyes he said to her "I don't think so Sodenko."

The white dragon's calm demeanor cracked slightly upon hearing this as she said _"Excuse me?" _and gained a light scowl on her face.

"Seeing as Takashi was telling the truth about your pasts, I don't think it is a wise idea to let you roam free. Until you learn your lesson about what you did, you are going to stay chained to that realm." Riku is upfront to the white dragon regarding his feelings, which only serves to fuel Sodenko's anger as she unfurls from her coiled state and glares over at her brother.

"_So my foolish brother, how shall you live with yourself knowing that I will be trapped in this realm while you are free to travel through space unbound?" _Sodenko tries to guilt her brother with her silver-tongued words, but Takashi merely responds with _"Who said I was going anywhere?"_

"Huh?" Riku says in surprise, and as he turns to face the black dragon he continues on by mentioning "But Takashi, you are free now. After all these years you can finally go wherever you want."

"_Heh, yeah…I could, couldn't I? But what would be the point? My parents are long dead, and the tribes have probably been gone for quite a while now…All I have left in this universe is my sister now, and even if she's a pain in the ass I don't think it would be right for me to leave her alone." _Takashi then begins to move forward, and Riku floats out of his way so the dragon can go beside her sister and look down at her up close and personal.

"_I still believe you can change, so why don't you start by giving Riku what he wanted from us before?" _Takashi asks.

Sodenko scowls at her brother, but nonetheless agrees with what he said simply because she felt that she could earn the favor of the boy and increase the odds of her freedom by doing so. The dragon siblings turn to face the teenage Overlord, and Takashi starts off by saying _"So, do you still want to learn the secret of reviving the dead?"_

A serious expression is adorned on Takashi's face, leading Riku to believe that the truth might be something dangerous to hear. Regardless of the danger presented though, the boy nodded his head and calmly floated in space as he said confidently "I'm ready."

Takashi then began to explain _"Light and Darkness both hold the key to reviving the dead. Using one element alone won't allow you to perform the task, but if you offer up energies of both elements you can succeed."_

Sodenko then expands on what her brother said by mentioning _"However, death will not so easily surrender a life without gaining life in return. Some of your own life energy must be exchanged in order for one dead soul to be brought back. Using Light and Darkness along with that is meant to ensure that you do not sacrifice your whole life to bring someone back."_

With that, the secret of resurrection had been taught to the teenage Overlord, who clenched his right fist against his chest and thought to himself _"My own life energy huh? …I'll be more than willing to give it up if it means that I can reverse death." _

Looking back up at the two dragons with a confident smirk on his face, Riku says with a thankful nod of his head "Thank you for telling me this. Now I have to ask…What will you do if you are going to keep an eye on your sister, Takashi?"

"_I will stay with her inside of our cage for the time being. If you ever need my help though Riku, don't be afraid to ask. Now that you are connected perfectly with Light and Darkness, you will be able to communicate with us at any time." _Takashi explains.

Riku smiles at the black dragon and says to him "I will definitely keep that in mind. And I'll make sure that while you are in the void, you will be able to see things from my perspective at all times."

"…_We could already do that anyways…We've been doing so for the entire year you've been alive for…" _Sodenko is quick to comment in a snide tone of voice.

"_Well that answers how long I've been traveling for anyways…" _The teenage Overlord thinks to himself as he looks up at Takashi and says to him "So ummm…Thanks again for your help, even if it was unintentional."

Takashi nods his head and says _"You're welcome, Riku." _After replying to the boy's thanks with relieving honesty, the black dragon grabs onto the chain wrapped around his sister's neck and slowly tugs on it. With an annoyed look on Sodenko's face, the two dragons head back into the blank void, which closes up and leaves Riku alone in the depths of space one more.

…Actually, the teenage Overlord could no longer say that he was alone. Even if they weren't by him at this moment, he had two people with him now. A black dragon who was kinder than what was seen at first glance, and a white dragon who needs to taught to be kind. He had his work cut out for him to try and get Sodenko to ironically see the light, but to the boy it was just yet another thing on his growing list of duties in this universe.

Turning and taking a glance down at the two spheres of cosmic energy and darkness, Riku thinks to himself _"So what are these supposed to be anyways?" _

Takashi answers from the void with _"Not something we should be dealing with right now. Trust me, there are a lot of things that we are better off not investigating, and those two spheres are two of the more dangerous ones. Getting this close was already a bad enough idea as it is."_

Trusting the black dragon's word on this matter, Riku thinks to himself to communicate with Takashi _"Well, I guess we can check back here another time then…Come to think about it, didn't you guys doom a bunch worlds by blowing up that sun back there?"_

"_Don't worry, there wasn't a single inhabited planet within range of that sun." _Takashi insists, which causes the teenage Overlord to let out a sigh of relief.

Turning away from the spheres and looking out towards the endless, starry abyss beyond him, Riku quickly turns back into his base form and covers himself in a shield of air, saying in a very confident tone of voice "I've only scratched the surface of what my elements can do…I've also only scratched the surface of what the universe has to offer. Lets go see what else we can find out there, huh?" Kicking himself away from where he currently floated, the teenage Overlord heads off towards new adventures in the universe…

_To be continued in Clash of the Elements: The Messenger from Nega_


End file.
